🤖 feat: keyboard shortcuts for the background processes strip

[ThomasK33]

Summary

The background processes strip now has keyboard shortcuts on desktop and in the VS Code webview. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+J expands the strip and focuses its first row. Arrow keys move between rows, Enter opens the output viewer, Backspace terminates the process, and Esc (or the chord again) collapses the strip and returns focus to where it was. Desktop also gets a "Focus Background Processes" palette entry.

Fixes #5197

Implementation

• All key handling lives in the shared BackgroundProcessesBanner, so desktop and the webview get the same shortcuts. The rows use a roving tabindex. Row keys go through ChatInputDecoration's new optional contentRef / onContentKeyDown props and call stopKeyboardPropagation, so Esc on a row does not also reach the window-level stream interrupt.
• The chord listener is registered only while the strip has processes. With no processes the chord is not consumed (not preventDefaulted).
• Focus follow-up: when the focused row's process leaves the list (terminated, exited or removed elsewhere), focus moves to a neighbouring row. When the last row goes, focus returns to its origin. After closing the output dialog opened with Enter, focus returns to the row (the dialog has no trigger for Radix to restore focus to). With no focus origin (palette activation), Esc leaves focus on the strip's toggle button.
• The chord is ignored inside the command palette (cmdk root), which isDialogOpen() does not detect. The chord and the palette request are also ignored while the strip sits in an inert pane (desktop keeps the chat pane mounted under immersive review).
• If the row's process leaves the list while its output dialog is open, closing the dialog focuses a neighbouring row.
• The chord is left to the integrated terminal when it has focus.
• Settings → Keybinds lists the global chord. The row keys are scoped (like modal-only keys), so they appear in the row tooltips and the docs instead.
• New keybinds in keybinds.ts: FOCUS_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES, and the row-scoped BACKGROUND_PROCESS_NEXT/PREV/VIEW_OUTPUT/TERMINATE. Settings → Keybinds lists them in a new "Background processes" group, and docs/config/keybinds.mdx documents them (the webview has no palette or settings).
• Shortcut hints appear in the row buttons' tooltips and are hidden at mobile widths.
• No new Storybook story: the KeyboardFocusedRow story was removed in the last push because its play failed in CI at phone width. The six App.test cases cover its assertion (the chord focuses the first row) and more.

Decisions

• Chord choice: VS Code forwards every webview keydown to the workbench (did-keydown in VS Code's webview pre/index.html), so the chord avoids VS Code's global bindings (Ctrl+Shift+B runs the build task). Electron uses Ctrl+Shift+R (force reload) and Ctrl+Shift+I (devtools). Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+J is free in Xum, and VS Code binds it only inside the search view.
• Terminate is Backspace, not Delete: the macOS delete key reports Backspace. It acts only on a focused strip row, like the existing one-click Terminate button.

Validation

Test-first. Before the fix, the new App tests failed:

expect(await press(textarea, FOCUS_STRIP)).toBe(false);
Expected: false
Received: true
(fail) ... the shortcut focuses the strip; arrows move, Backspace terminates, Escape returns focus (#5197)
error: Unable to fire a "keydown" event - please provide a DOM element.
(fail) ... Enter on a focused row opens its output (#5197)

Round 1 of the normal review added three cases (natural exit, palette origin, palette open). Against the previous head, those tests failed (3 fail). Round 2 added two more (row removed while its dialog is open, inert pane). Against the previous head, those failed too (2 fail). Round 3 added the terminal case, which fails without the guard.

After the fix: bun test ./vscode/src/webview/App.test.tsx -t "#5197" 6 pass. The new palette test in sources.test.ts passes. Two mutation checks failed as expected: no refocus after removal, and no refocus after closing the dialog. bun test ./vscode/src/webview/webviewCss.test.ts (drift guard) passes.

CSS: no CSS files changed. The webview dist CSS asset count stays at 2 (xumChatView.css, katex/katex.min.css). The new utilities compile into the existing stylesheets, and the drift guard confirms the webview defines them.

Dogfood:

1. VS Code webview bundle (env -C vscode node esbuild.config.js) served with a host stub at 300 px (narrow sidebar), 390 px and 900 px. With agent-browser I pressed the chord from the composer: row 0 was focused. ArrowDown went to row 1. Backspace sent workspace.backgroundBashes.terminate {processId: "bash_2"}. Enter opened the output viewer (getOutput calls). Esc closed it and focus returned to the row. A second Esc collapsed the strip and focused the textarea.
2. Desktop (Storybook App story) at 1200 px and 390 px: the chord focused the first row. The palette entry "Focus Background Processes" (shown with its Ctrl+Shift+J hint) focused row 0.

Webview, 300 px sidebar, second row focused:

Webview, 390 px:

Webview, tooltip hint:

Desktop, 1200 px:

Desktop, 390 px:

Desktop palette entry:

Size: 472 changed lines (464+, 8-), tests included, 4 of them regenerated in builtInSkillContent.generated.ts from the docs change. The coordinator accepted up to 506.

Risks

Low. The chord listener exists only while processes are listed, and row keys act only when a strip row has focus. Mouse behavior is unchanged.

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[chatgpt-codex-connector]

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Review	Status	Commit	Review trigger
📝 Code Review	✅ Completed 2026-10-04T21:04:13.315034Z	58d4698	New commits
🔒 Security Review	✅ Completed 2026-10-04T21:01:35.624654Z	58d4698	New commits

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[ThomasK33]

Readiness record

• Final commit: 58d46988eb7a2f3cfdd8afdfef5175c72a4a9cb8
• Local validation on this head: make static-check passed; vscode/src/webview/App.test.tsx 88 pass (six 🤖 feat: keyboard shortcuts for the background processes strip (desktop and webview) #5197 tests); sources.test.ts passed; static Storybook build + test-storybook passed; Pixel snapshot budget 680/681.
• Required CI: all passing on this head (the optional Pixel / Review is ignored).
• Review count: 11 assessments in total, a one-off exception granted by the coordinator: 8 before the last push, the 2 automatic reviews after the story-deletion push, and 1 final independent check. Findings shrank 3 → 2 → 1 → 1 → 1.
• Last push: deleted only the KeyboardFocusedRow story (its play failed in CI at phone width); App.test covers its assertion.
• Deferred, with owners: 🤖 feat: accessible names and action hints for background process rows #5646 (row role/name, plus the Terminate button's missing label) and 🤖 fix: ignore the background-strip chord while a composer picker is open #5649 (chord passes through an open composer picker). Both are labeled backlog.
• Final independent check: "ready with tracked follow-ups". It judged that 🤖 feat: accessible names and action hints for background process rows #5646 does not stop screen-reader users from operating the feature (row text names the process; Enter/Backspace and the labeled View output button work) and that 🤖 fix: ignore the background-strip chord while a composer picker is open #5649 loses no data and recovers in one step. No P1 found.
• Reason for stopping: required checks green, all threads resolved, final check recommends ready.

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