(layout): a right-hand tool bar for Changes, Diff, Touched and the shell; window-only controls at the top right #506

Request (maintainer, 2026-10-09)

Move the tools opened beside a session (Changes, Diff, Touched, the panel shell) into a vertical icon bar on the right edge of the window, one icon wide, for a more coherent design. In the header:

• the session's own controls stay next to its id: refresh (and stop, which is also per session);
• the top right keeps only the controls of the window as a whole.

Today the top right mixes per-session buttons (Shell, Changes, Touched, refresh, stop) with window-level ones, which the maintainer finds confusing; and each tool lays the file panel out its own way (#503: the shell is below Changes but above Touched).

Proposed defaults (to confirm in the specification)

• One layout for every tool. An icon opens or closes its tool in the same right-hand panel; the active icon is highlighted.
• The shell stays at the bottom of that panel with its splitter, and one other tool at a time above it (Changes, Diff or Touched): the prompt stays visible while reading a diff.
• One global bar, the tools acting on the session shown.
• A hidden but living shell ((panel-terminal): keep the panel shell alive when it is closed, reopen the same one #505) shows a dot on its icon.
• Keyboard: each tool keeps or gains a shortcut; the bar is reachable by keyboard and has accessible names.

Absorbs / depends

• Absorbs (file-panel): the panel shell switches from bottom to top between Changes and Touched #503 (one layout by construction).
• Prepares (panel-terminal): keep the panel shell alive when it is closed, reopen the same one #505 (the icon shows a living hidden shell).
• Touches .ai/contexts/window-frame.md (strip, menu, accelerators), panel-terminal.md, changes-view.md, touched-files.md.

Process

Specification first (what exists at HEAD, every control and where it goes, keyboard, narrow windows, remote sessions, plain terminals, the grid view), verified by a second agent, then implementation with e2e journeys on layout. Not for v0.0.90.