atc

Every Claude Code session you run, on every machine, from pal: which ones need you, a live chat and the real terminal for each, and new ones started in any folder on any machine.

This is pal's side of atc, a small server that keeps Claude Code's background sessions running on your machines and lists them in one place, with a web page, a terminal client and an Android app of its own. atc knows each session's state from Claude Code's own background service, so nothing here is guessed: a session needs you, it is your turn, it is working, or it stopped.

For the sessions of one machine without a server, read from the agents' own files, the Sessions extension is the one to use.

Setup

1. Run atc on the machines where your sessions live: install and run it as a service.
2. On the machine with pal, atc login <server> <token> (or set atc server and Token under Settings › Extensions › atc).

That is all: the extension uses what atc login saved (client.json in atc's config folder, ATC_CONFIG_DIR or ~/.config/atc). A server that trusts your tailnet takes no token. A server behind a private CA (Caddy's tls internal) works when this machine trusts that CA, as a browser would.

Palettes

Sessions (atc-sessions): every session, the ones that need you first, then your turn, working, stopped, parked last. The row is the title, then what it is doing or asking, or for a finished turn what it ended on in one line (below), with the machine (when atc lists several), folder and branch; the state, the context it holds and the age on the right. The pane is what it asks, or atc's summary of its reply (the status, a line per topic, the overview by kind), then your last message and the reply itself; the machine, folder, branch, model, context, permission mode, times, its published pages and what it spent (tokens, the cost at API prices, how long Claude worked). Filters: All, Needs you, Running, Pinned. Tab on a row types a message; Enter sends it and opens the chat.

Chat (atc-chat): one session as a chat that follows it live. The conversation (prompts, replies drawn as markdown, tool calls one line each), what it is doing now, and when it needs you a card saying what it asks. The search row is the message field the whole time: type and Enter sends. A stopped or past session is resumed in the background first. Opened bare (its root row, a hotkey), it shows the session that needs you most.

Terminal (atc-terminal): the session's own terminal inside pal, Claude Code's screen as atc attach shows it, drawn by xterm.js in the panel's colours: type into it, scroll it, answer any prompt there, questions included. A stopped session is resumed first. Escape leaves the level as everywhere in pal, so the Escape Claude Code wants is ctrl+[ (what a terminal sends for it anyway) or cmd+.; cmd+shift+f makes this window the one whose size the terminal takes. The page reaches nothing but its own folder: the extension holds the websocket to atc and relays the bytes both ways. A hidden terminal keeps its connection for a minute. ./xterm.sh vendors xterm.js into surface/vendor/, pinned and checked.

New Session (atc-new): atc's presets first (a folder with standing instructions, presets.json in atc's config folder; started on their own machine), then the folders you used lately on every machine, then those under atc's roots. Tab types the first message and a name; Enter starts the session there and opens its chat, cmd+enter starts it in a new git worktree. Another folder… is a form for any folder on any machine.

Earlier Conversations (atc-history): past conversations on every machine, newest first, found by title, folder or branch. Enter reads one (a message typed after Tab resumes it), cmd+enter resumes it.

Outputs (atc-outputs): what the running sessions made: the pages they published first (links matching atc's ATC_FEATURED, by their title, with the page's preview), then the servers they the files they wrote or read (opened through atc's signed links), the links they gave. From a session's row or chat it lists that session's alone.

What a turn ended on

When a session finishes a turn, atc has a model read its final reply and sum it up at three lengths: a status line ("Done: the changelog, two entries need your call"), a line per topic, and for a long reply an overview by kind ("Found:", "Open:"). The extension shows it wherever the session does: the row's subtitle, the popover row (the ring's row adds the lines), the bar's tooltip, the top of the pane, and a card under the reply in the chat, since the panel opens at the reply's end. A summary is only ever for the reply the session holds now, so a working session shows none; until it arrives the start of the reply stands in, and "Summarize the reply again" asks for a new one. A short reply is its own summary. A server with summaries turned off (ATC_SUMMARY=off) sends none, and the rows show the reply's start.

How a prompt is answered

A message goes through atc's POST /send, which pastes it into the session's prompt and submits it. A key is different: atc has no route for one, so Allow and Say no join the session's terminal over atc's websocket (as atc's own voice mode does), take the size the terminal already has so a session open on another screen is not resized, and write Enter or Escape.

What a session asks decides what is offered. A permission prompt and a plan take both keys. A question (AskUserQuestion) takes only Escape: Enter would pick its first answer unread, so it is answered where its options show (cmd+o, its terminal in pal). A session open in a terminal (not one of atc's background sessions) is read here and answered in its terminal.

The bar item

sessions: a count per state in its colour, red needs you, amber your turn, blue working, and the plan's fullest limit (a gauge and its percent) once atc warns about it; an alarm while one needs you (the needs rule); hidden with nothing running. The tooltip names the session that needs you and what it asks, and what the finished turns ended on. The popover lists every session by state, the plan's limits (the session's five hours and the week) under them:

It follows atc's event stream (/api/events), so a session that starts to need you shows within a couple of seconds; a render every 30 s is the safety net. It publishes atc/needs_you, atc/your_turn, atc/working and atc/week_used (the week's share of the plan, in percent; asked every two minutes).

Links

Settings