Prototype: operator-declared launchers in launchers.toml (one tap → throwaway Space)

[enieuwy]

This is a prototype more than a proposal — I built it for my own phone, it has been running on my install for a day, and I am posting it mostly to ask whether the shape is right. Happy for it to be closed, or to be told the whole idea belongs in a fork.

What I wanted

On the desktop I have a herdr popup bound to a key that runs a small TUI, I glance at it, and I quit. From the phone I could not have that. As far as I can tell a popup is invisible to Collie by construction — it has no pane id and is not in herdr's pane API, so pane.list/pane.read cannot see one. A pane is the only surface the phone can read, so the nearest equivalent I could think of was a pane that closes itself: herdr already drops a tab whose last pane closes and a Space whose last tab closes, so a command that closes its own pane leaves nothing behind.

What this adds

launchers.toml, next to commands.toml and keys.toml:

[[launchers]]
command = "showy-quota-peek"   # required; typed verbatim
label = "Quota bars"           # optional; defaults to the command's first token
cwd = "~/dev/collie"           # optional; defaults to home, leading ~ expanded

I deliberately did not reach for a new env var — #109 → #112 settled where operator rows live, and this reuses that machinery rather than reopening it: same operator-file.ts reader, same mtime-checked live reload, same hold-the-last-good-rows posture, same drop-the-row-never-the-file validation.

A tap creates a Space labelled from the row, types the command, sends Enter, and navigates into the fresh pane with the existing freshPane flow.

POST /api/launch takes a command string and runs it only on exact equality with a configured row. My reasoning for a route rather than doing it client-side: /api/workspace plus a reply into the new pane would put the command line on the phone and leave nothing to match against, whereas this way the client can only name a row. Same write guard, same session scoping, same audit posture as the other structural creates — command is not added to METADATA_KEYS, so it redacts under COLLIE_AUDIT_CONTENT=none like any other content-bearing detail.

Enter is sent literally rather than COLLIE_SUBMIT_KEYS, since that is the submit sequence for an agent's composer and this is a bare shell prompt. A failed send rolls the Space back.

Screenshots

Rows are rumen-peek, showy-quota-peek, and a lazygit row that exists only to show cwd.

Dashboard section	Folded	The same rows as a sheet

The pane header at 390 px — Find, the launcher, the status badge:

One tap later, and then the part I actually care about: while it runs it is an ordinary Space, and after quitting it is gone.

Launched	SPACES (7) while running	SPACES (6) after quitting

(Images live on an orphan assets/launcher-screenshots branch in my fork, so they are not in this diff. Say the word and I will re-upload them as attachments instead.)

Where I am least sure

• Two surfaces may be one too many. The dashboard section is the one-tap path; the sheet exists because from inside a pane the section costs Home → tap → Back. I would happily drop either.
• A separate file, or a row kind in commands.toml? I chose separate because a command row addresses an existing pane and has a scope, while a launcher creates the pane, so scope would be meaningless for it — keys.toml felt like the precedent. Easy to fold in if you disagree.
• Whether /api/launch should exist at all, per the reasoning above. This is the decision I would most like checked.
• No confirm = true for launcher rows, though command rows have it. Trivial to add if you want the symmetry.
• No ADR, since I do not think this closes an option anyone argued for. If you think the "own file" call needs one, I will write it.
• I have only run this on macOS, against one herdr session. The screenshots and the geometry checks are headless Chromium at phone sizes; the day of real use is my own phone, so consider anything about other platforms untested.

Checks

bun test ./bridge ./scripts → 666 pass. Web suite → 114 files / 2393 tests pass. Both typechecks clean. New tests cover the grammar (defaults, ~ expansion, each drop case, later-row-wins, a non-array launchers, a non-table row among good ones), the route (unlisted command rejected without creating anything; a listed row creates a Space with that label and cwd and types the command plus Enter; a send failure closes the created pane), and the two UI surfaces.

Per CLAUDE.md I have left the version files and CHANGELOG.md alone.

[AltanS]

Thanks this is a cool addition!! I'm going to check the exact proposal and its shape in the upcoming days and get back at you.

[enieuwy]

Happy to contribute to collie! You've built something great 👏