hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix Set JetBrains terminal/console title from foreground Hermes UI on first request [1 participants]

Request

Hermes should set the visible terminal/console title on the first user request, and it should work when Hermes is running inside JetBrains/IntelliJ terminal/console environments.

Concrete desired behavior:

• On the first user request in a session, derive a short title from the task/session.
• Emit/set that title from the foreground Hermes UI process, not from a tool subprocess.
• The visible JetBrains terminal tab/console title should become something like: TrikeShed fanout Binance stochastic cache
• This should not depend on the model using the terminal tool.

Why the obvious implementation fails

We tried this from inside a Hermes terminal tool subprocess:

printf '\033]0;%s\007' 'TrikeShed fanout Binance stochastic cache'

That does not affect the IntelliJ terminal tab because the terminal() tool runs in a separate captured subprocess/pty. Its stdout/stderr is collected by Hermes and returned as tool output after the command exits. The OSC escape bytes do not reach the user's actual JetBrains terminal/console pty as terminal control bytes.

Sending OSC escapes in the agent's text response is also unreliable: it may render as literal text, be sanitized, or be ignored by the JetBrains console path.

Implementation implications

The title-setting needs to happen in Hermes' foreground CLI/render path, near where the interactive UI owns the real terminal stdout/pty, e.g. conceptually:

print(f"\033]0;{title}\007", end="", flush=True)
print(f"\033]2;{title}\007", end="", flush=True)

Do not implement this through terminal() or any other captured tool execution path.

JetBrains-specific challenges to handle/test

• JetBrains terminal/console may not honor OSC title sequences in all modes.
• IntelliJ Terminal and Run/Debug Console may have different escape handling.
• If Hermes is launched under the JetBrains terminal, OSC 0/2 should be emitted by the foreground Hermes process.
• If Hermes is embedded through ACP/IDE integration rather than a real terminal, there may be no tty title to set; in that case the ACP/IDE adapter may need a separate title/update hook.
• If tmux/screen is present, the correct behavior may be tmux window rename rather than direct terminal title, or direct OSC passthrough depending on terminal settings.
• Avoid emitting raw OSC in gateway/messaging platforms where it will appear as literal text.

Acceptance criteria

• First user request in an interactive CLI session sets the terminal title from the foreground Hermes process.
• The feature is gated to local interactive terminal contexts, not gateway/chat text responses.
• Works or gracefully no-ops when stdout is not a TTY.
• JetBrains/IntelliJ behavior is documented: either supported via OSC from foreground CLI, or explicitly marked unsupported with the reason.
• Add a small test around title emission routing so regressions do not reintroduce tool-subprocess based title setting.