Frozen Agent

A frozen code agent is one whose process has ended while its terminal output was kept. Freezing frees everything a running agent costs — its process, its context, its share of the machine — but keeps the part you usually wanted: the task-workflow summary, the list of tasks it spawned, the analysis it produced.

The ait frozenagent TUI is what stands in for that agent. It takes over the agent’s own pane in the agent’s own tmux window, replays the captured output in place, and offers the three ways back: restore the session, re-pick the task, or drop the record for good.

Customizable keys: every shortcut here can be rebound. Press ? in this TUI for the in-place editor, or open Settings → Shortcuts.

Launching

You rarely launch the viewer yourself. When an agent is frozen — with f in ait monitor or ait minimonitor — the freeze replaces the agent’s process with a viewer bound to that record, so the pane keeps its place in the window and the window keeps its name.

Two forms are available by hand:

ait frozenagent              # list mode: every frozen record, across all projects
ait frozenagent --record <id>  # viewer mode: one record

Those are the only accepted forms. Anything else prints usage: ait frozenagent [--record <id>] and exits 2.

You can also reach list mode from any other TUI: press j for the TUI switcher, then f. The switcher’s bottom hint row does not advertise f — that row is already at the width a standard terminal can show — but the key works.

Layout

The header is a single line of seven fields, separated by ·:

myproject · agent-pick-1705 · t1705 Frozen code agents · claudecode/opus5 · frozen 2026-09-09T18:30:23Z · 412 lines · frozen

project · window · task · agent · when it was frozen · how many lines were captured · the record’s state. A task the record cannot name shows (no task), and an unknown agent shows (agent unknown).

The header also carries a suffix when the capture is degraded or the view is switched:

Below the header is the log area holding the captured output, and a search box that stays hidden until you open it.

Viewing

• r toggles between the ANSI replay and plain stripped text. When the colour capture is unreadable the viewer starts in plain mode and says so.
• m opens the capture as Markdown — the selected range if you have one, the whole capture otherwise. Escape closes it.
• g and G jump to the top and the bottom.

If the capture file itself is gone, the body reads (capture file missing — the record can still be restored, re-picked or dropped) and every action stays available.

Searching

Press / to open the search box, type, and press Enter. Matching lines are highlighted; n moves to the next hit. The search is a case-insensitive substring and it wraps — you are told when it does (Search wrapped to top), and told when there is nothing (Not found: <term>). Escape closes the box.

Selecting and copying

Two ways to select:

• Keyboard — shift+↑ / shift+↓ extend a line range from the cursor. The range stays visible after you navigate away, and Escape clears it (when the search box is not open — Escape closes that first).
• Mouse — drag to select, as in any terminal app.

y copies the keyboard range if you have one, otherwise the mouse selection, and reports how many lines it took. The text goes to the system clipboard by two routes at once: an OSC 52 escape sequence, and — inside tmux — a tmux paste buffer that is forwarded to every attached client. The second route is what makes a copy work from a pane you cannot see.

Restore, re-pick and drop

Three ways out of a frozen record, none of which is reversible in the same way:

• R — restore. Relaunches the agent with its recorded session, in the pane the viewer is occupying.
• p — re-pick. Starts the task fresh instead of replaying the old session. Often the cheaper choice: a new agent reads the task file rather than a long transcript. Only available when the record names a task — otherwise the viewer says This record has no task id — restore instead.
• k — drop. Deletes the record and its capture, and closes the stand-in pane, leaving nothing running. It confirms first: Drop the frozen record and its capture? This cannot be undone. with a Drop button. R and p do not confirm, because a failed attempt leaves the viewer and the capture where they were.

The capture is not preserved by choosing restore or re-pick. Once the resumed agent identifies itself, the record deletes the transcript — the restored outcome below. The capture survives only when the attempt fails, or when it succeeds unverified (restored, unverified — capture kept). If you want to keep part of the output, copy it with y before you press R or p.

While a restore is in flight the header reads dispatching…; a drop reads dropping…. When it settles you get one of:

A viewer that comes back after a failed restore shows what the store remembers: last restore failed: <reason> — capture kept.

List mode

ait frozenagent with no arguments lists every frozen record on the machine, across every project, under the header frozen records: <n>:

Fields the record does not carry show —. Enter opens the highlighted record in the viewer; R, p and k act on the highlighted row, and more than one can be in flight at once. Opening a record from the list deliberately does not make that pane the record’s stand-in — it is a reader, not a replacement.

Next: How-To Guides — reading, copying and reviving a frozen agent.
Reference: Reference — keybindings, header fields, states, exit codes.