Native agent kind for ZCode (zcode-app-cli): observed title/OSC detection data offered

[Alexsun1one]

Feature request: a native zcode agent kind

Context

We run ZCode (a GLM-backed coding agent, TUI surface, standalone package name zcode-app-cli, launcher ztui / zcode) as a daily lane alongside claude/codex/kimi on macOS, herdr 0.9.3.

Because the Agent enum is a closed set without zcode, we currently park detection rules on the letta slot with aliases = ["zcode", "zcode-app-cli"] — the workaround your own docs anticipate. A native kind would let us drop the slot hack.

Observed detection behavior (≈2 weeks of daily fleet use)

• working — the TUI sets the terminal title to ZC | <braille spinner> <activity>… (same convention as Claude Code). Activities observed: working, waiting for model, thinking, processing model response, preparing Bash, running Bash.
• blocked — OSC progress 4;3 while an approval is pending; the activity line shows waiting for permission.
• idle — composer footer visible: Context N% left · N in · N out … plus a ? for shortcuts hint line.

We have a v3 local manifest (modeled on the remote letta manifest) that has been running in production for our fleet since 2026-09-28 — happy to hand it over as the seed for a native zcode.toml, or to test a PR branch against our lanes.

[Alexsun1one]

Follow-up with protocol intel that also affects detection rules generally: Claude Code 2.1.295 shipped support for OSC 7501 (Program Status Protocol) — and it is handshake-based. Strings in the 2.1.295 binary include probe: no reply to OSC 7501 ; ? / probe: OSC 7501 reply alongside the constant table PROMPT:133, GHOSTTY:777, ITERM2_PROPRIETARY:1337, PROGRAM_STATUS:7501, TAB_STATUS:21337: the agent probes the terminal first and only emits status when the terminal answers.

Since Herdr sits in the terminal seat and detection manifests already consume OSC progress (4;3), answering the OSC 7501 probe on its panes would give Herdr an authoritative running / waiting-for-confirmation / finished signal straight from the agent — no more spinner-title regexes (the same signals our zcode rules approximate today). Worth considering as a general detection layer alongside native kinds.