Session amnesia
Each agent keeps its own conventions and context window. When the process exits, the useful part of the afternoon often exits with it.
local-first · agent-neutral · tui-first
The workspace stays.
The agents rotate.
Relayterm is a persistent, provider-neutral workspace for command-line coding agents. Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and tools that do not exist yet can enter a project, take a task, leave a record, and hand the work on.
It does not fuse agents into a new model. It gives them durable surroundings: real terminal sessions, shared project state, explicit task ownership, and structured handovers.
Read the current scope
Executable planned as
rt
$ rt
relayterm workspace ~/src/ledger
sessions 2 live tasks 1 claimed 3 ready
agent opencode task RT-14 normalize csv dates
[handover]
- verified
- fixture tests pass on sample.csv
- next
- resume RT-14 in the existing session
- owner
- unclaimed
01 / The missing layer
Context should not die with the session
Coding agents are capable. Their operating context is fragmented.
Tool lock-in by accident
Work settles inside a vendor chat, a particular pane, or a private transcript. The repository does not know.
Blind succession
A newly arrived agent cannot reliably see what was tried, what changed, what remains, or how the last change was verified.
Leaky handovers
Informal notes pasted into public repositories tend to include secrets, home paths, hostnames, and conversation scraps that never should have shipped.
The workspace belongs to the project, not the agent.
02 / Neutral model
Four nouns, on purpose
A small common contract keeps provider differences at the boundary.
- 01
Agent definition
A named command with declared capabilities. It describes how an agent can participate without making that provider part of the core model.
- 02
Agent instance
A supervised process with a real PTY, a working directory, a lifecycle, and optionally a claimed task.
- 03
Task
A neutral unit of work with state, scope, dependencies, acceptance notes, and an ownership history.
- 04
Handover
A structured record of current state, relevant files, decisions, open questions, verification, and the recommended next action.
Provider instruction files such as AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md can coexist. They do not replace shared task and handover state.
03 / First release boundary
A narrow first cut
Dependable continuity comes before autonomous coordination.
In the first cut
- Persistent workspace rooted in a project
- Core daemon that owns state and sessions
- TUI client connected to that core
- Multiple real terminal panes
- Neutral agent registry
- Task queue with a visible lifecycle
- Structured handovers and local audit events
- Optional Git worktrees
- Recovery after TUI or SSH disconnects, within MVP limits
Not in the first cut
- Desktop, product web, or mobile client
- Mandatory cloud account
- Custom model or inference gateway
- Autonomous agent swarms
- Live collaborative editing
- Internet-exposed multi-user daemon
04 / Principles
Built around the work, not the vendor
Project ownership over agent ownership
Tasks, decisions, progress, and handovers belong to the workspace. An agent contributes to them but never becomes their exclusive source of truth.
Neutrality by design
The core does not require a particular provider, subscription, or transcript format. Provider support stays in replaceable adapters.
Real terminals, not simulated consoles
Agents run inside real pseudo-terminal sessions with native shell behavior, resizing, signals, colors, and their own interactive authentication flows.
Local-first and inspectable
Core functionality works on a developer-controlled machine without a hosted service. State and coordination artifacts remain documented and recoverable.
Explicit coordination
Task claims, state transitions, handovers, and conflicts stay visible and attributable. Coordination does not hide in an unstructured chat transcript.
Safe public defaults
No default telemetry, no provider secrets, and no raw private context in public artifacts. Export is deliberate and supports review before publication.
05 / Status
This domain is a placeholder with opinions
relayterm.com is an interim public face, not the product. Relayterm is in early definition and implementation as a local control plane for agent-assisted development.
There is no download because there is not yet a public release. There is no launch-shaped waiting list and no account to create. This site has no telemetry and talks to no agent API. The real work happens in the repository and on the user's machine.
Relayterm is open source and licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The implementation, project vision, and contribution history live in the public project repository.