igris

Side sessions

Since 1.2 you can open a Claude Code session of your own from igris, in a pane next to the run's, for a question or a look into something, without stopping the run and without it becoming a task.

A side session is not a task. igris doesn't watch it for igris done, counts no attempt, writes no Status for it, never marks it needs you, sends no notification for it and applies no timeout. Inside it, igris done, skip and reset refuse (its environment has IGRIS_SIDE).

Open one

Press S on the home screen or in the run view. It needs a reachable backend (herdr or tmux) and is not available with --no-tui. The dialog asks:

  1. What it is about.
    • Blank: no first prompt; the session opens at its input box.
    • About this task (with a task selected or current): the task's ID, title and phase, the plan's path, the task text, whether it runs now, then Question: .
    • igris problem: igris's version, the backend, the run state, the last 10 run-log events and the summary of igris doctor, and a pointer to .igris/runs.jsonl and .igris/state.json. Never config values or secrets.
  2. The first prompt. An editable field holding the prefill. It is cleaned of escape sequences, at most 8 KiB, and typed once the session is ready. Empty types nothing.
  3. The model, from your [models] ranks. [side] model is preselected (sonnet unless you set another).
  4. The mode: default, manual, accept, auto or plan (approved in the pane, not by igris). [side] mode is preselected. Skip-permissions is never offered, and [side] mode = "yolo" is a config error.
  5. During a run, where it works. The shared tree (the default) or its own worktree.
[side]
model = "sonnet"
mode = "default"

During a run

A side session in the shared tree works in the same files as the task. The dialog says so (M2-04 is working in this tree; a plan edit holds the run, or in a parallel run The run merges into this tree; a plan edit holds the run.) and preselects manual mode whatever [side] mode says, so every edit asks first, whatever Claude Code's own default is. The rules igris gives the session also tell it to ask you before editing files while a task is running.

Two things to know:

  • A plan edit from a side session holds the run, like an edit from any session, and so does an igris.toml edit. igris has no exemption for side sessions: it would let any session claim to be one.
  • Its own worktree (offered during a run only) runs the session in .igris/worktrees/side-<id> on the branch igris/side-<id>, so it shares no files with the task. Closing the session removes a worktree with no changes (the branch stays) and keeps one with changes, naming it.

List, focus and close

The header shows side N while any are open, and home shows SIDE N open. S then opens the Side sessions page: one row per session with its state, age, subject, model, mode and worktree.

  • enter or o brings one to the front.
  • x asks before closing (Keep it or Close session).
  • New… opens another. At most 8 can be open.

Quitting igris never closes them. The next home or run view finds them again and reattaches each to its own pane. A session whose pane is gone is logged as ended.

Usage

igris reads a side session's transcript as a task's (token counts and model ids, never messages) and logs one side_usage line when the session ends. It is never counted as an attempt and never audited against a rank. igris usage shows side sessions in a table of their own, outside every total, and igris usage --json has an additive side array. See usage and plans.

What a side session could do

It is a Claude Code session in your project, so it can write what any session can, .igris/ included. IGRIS_SIDE stops an honest mistake (finishing a task from the wrong pane), not a session set on unsetting it. Records under .igris/side/ are read as small regular files, and a record that names another pane ends without touching it. The full list is in the threat model.