What problem does it solve?
Agents using shell tools often misinterpret results: they panic over benign grep exit-1 codes, lose truncated output, orphan long-running background jobs, or write bash idioms that silently break on Windows PowerShell. This Skill provides the foundational mental model for operating terminal tools correctly.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Standard envelope interpretation: Explains every field returned by terminal_exec (exit_code, stdout, output_handle, semantic_status, warning, auto_backgrounded, job_id, shell_kind) so results are read correctly.
- Auto-promotion model: Documents how commands exceeding the 30-second budget become background jobs that you poll with terminal_job_logs instead of treating as failures.
- Semantic exit codes: Clarifies that grep/rg/find/diff/test exit 1 is informational, not an error, and that semantic_status should be checked first.
- Cross-platform shell guidance: Covers the bash-only-on-POSIX policy and how to adapt commands when shell_kind is powershell or cmd on Windows.
- Use Case: An agent runs a long build with terminal_exec, receives auto_backgrounded=true with a job_id, polls terminal_job_logs until completion, and paginates truncated output via terminal_output_get without losing data.
Quick Start
Read this skill before using any shell_* or terminal_* tool so you handle envelopes, background jobs, and exit codes correctly.