Tab Watchdog
A background watchdog that notices when tabs go stale and fixes them before you do.
Questions this answers
- Why does my terminal tab show stale content?
- How to fix a frozen terminal tab without closing it?
- Does Chau7 detect and fix stuck terminal sessions?
- What happens when a terminal tab stops responding?
How it works
Chau7 runs a lightweight watchdog that periodically checks the health of every open tab. It monitors process state, output activity, and internal consistency. When a tab enters a stale state: for example, the shell process exited unexpectedly or the terminal view fell out of sync with the backend: the watchdog triggers an automatic refresh that restores the tab to a working state.
The watchdog uses a reset-after-timeout strategy rather than a give-up-after-failure approach. If a refresh does not resolve the issue immediately, the watchdog backs off and tries again after a configurable interval. This means transient issues (like a brief system overload) are recovered automatically, while persistent problems get retried rather than silently abandoned.
Why it matters
Stale or frozen terminal tabs are a quiet productivity killer. You switch to a tab expecting to see output, find it stuck, and waste time restarting the session. Chau7's watchdog monitors every tab for signs of staleness and resets state automatically. It resets after timeout rather than giving up permanently, because terminals are supposed to be resilient.
Frequently asked questions
Can I configure the watchdog timeout?
The watchdog uses sensible defaults that work for most workflows. The retry interval and timeout thresholds are tuned to balance responsiveness with avoiding unnecessary refreshes.
Does the watchdog affect terminal performance?
No. The health checks are extremely lightweight: they inspect process status and internal state flags without touching the render pipeline or scrollback buffer. The overhead is negligible even with dozens of tabs open.
What triggers a watchdog refresh?
Common triggers include a shell process that exited unexpectedly, a terminal view that stopped receiving updates despite an active process, or internal state inconsistencies between the backend and frontend. Manual user activity is never interrupted by the watchdog.