NALA TUI Agent
The resident agent in any terminal: same daemon, same tasks, same artifacts as the desktop, entirely on the keyboard.
The NALA TUI is a full agent surface that lives in a terminal. It is not a cut-down version of the desktop and not a chat box: it talks to the same daemon, creates the same durable tasks, reads the same artifacts, and participates in the same agent-to-agent messaging.
Start it in any terminal, in the directory you want to work in:
nala
What it is
| Layer | What it means |
|---|---|
| Identity | A first-party Harmony agent, not a third-party CLI wrapped in branding |
| Runtime | The TUI engine plus one reasoning owner; models never load in the TUI process |
| Client role | A client of the daemon — closing it does not end your work |
| Tools | Harmony tools: tasks, artifacts, worktrees, A2A |
IMPORTANT
The TUI is a client. The daemon owns orchestration state and the session host owns provider processes. This is why you can detach, close the terminal, and reattach later to the same session.
How a turn actually runs
When you submit a message the TUI does not simply create a task and hope:
- It ensures a structured session for the selected reasoning provider.
- It submits the prompt, and the daemon spawns the provider turn.
- It polls session events into the transcript until the turn completes.
- It keeps the durable task id from the acknowledgement.
The header chrome is gated on evidence: Starting, Thinking, Ready, and Failed appear on real submit acknowledgement and terminal turn evidence, not on optimism. Polling continues through error events until the canonical completion event, so a failure does not leave stale "running" state on screen.
NOTE
If the interface looks reluctant to claim progress, that is deliberate. It
reports what it can prove, and unknown is a real answer.
The four-character interaction language
Almost everything is reachable from four prefixes:
| Prefix | Addresses | Example |
|---|---|---|
/ | Commands — 80 built-ins | /tasks |
@ | Files, agents, and entities | @src/config.ts |
# | Tasks and artifacts | #task-id |
! | Your shell, directly | !git status |
Learn these four and the rest of the surface follows. See the composer.
What you can do without leaving the keyboard
| Area | Commands |
|---|---|
| Session | /resume /fork /attach /detach /stop /quit /clear /compact |
| Route | /mode /provider /model /profile /permissions |
| Work | /task /tasks /artifact /artifacts /export |
| Fleet and A2A | /agents /send /ask /delegate /review |
| Code | /worktree /diff |
| Context | /context /memory /trace |
| Extensibility | /skills /extensions /mcp /tools |
| Voice | /voice /speak /read-aloud /bark /play-back |
| Presence | /stay /come |
| Meta | /help /usage /doctor |
The complete generated list, with descriptions straight from the registry, is at TUI slash commands.
Overlays
Heavier interactions open as overlays rather than scrolling the transcript: command palette, agent fleet, context and memory, diff review, doctor recovery, permissions, plan approval, provider picker, session picker, tasks and artifacts, and traces.
Errors are structured
Failures carry a code and a retryable flag rather than prose you have to
interpret. Transport codes (DAEMON_NOT_CONNECTED, DAEMON_TIMEOUT,
DAEMON_CANCELLED, DAEMON_RPC_ERROR) are distinct from domain errors, so "the
daemon is unreachable" never looks like "the model refused".
Handing off to the desktop
/desktop
Opens the desktop attached to the same daemon, with your session, tasks, and artifacts intact. The reverse works too — start in the desktop, attach a terminal later.