Triggers & Automation

Triggers watch your terminal output for patterns and fire actions automatically. They’re the backbone of aiTerm’s Claude Code integration, but work for any terminal workflow.

How Triggers Work

1. Terminal output is stripped of ANSI escape codes
2. Output is buffered per-tab (with TUI redraw detection)
3. Regex patterns are tested against the buffer
4. Matching text fires configured actions
5. Matched text is consumed from the buffer

Match Modes

• Regex — full regular expression matching (default)
• Plain text — simple substring matching
• Variable condition — evaluates expressions using captured variables

Variable Conditions

Expression parser supporting complex conditions:

sessionId && !resumed
status == "waiting"
a || b && c
x != "done"

Operators: &&, ||, !, ==, !=

Actions

Action	Description
notify	Send a notification (toast or OS notification)
send_command	Write a command to the PTY
enable_auto_resume	Enable auto-resume for the tab
set_tab_state	Set the tab’s state indicator

Variables

Capture groups in regex patterns can be mapped to named variables:

• Variables are persisted per-tab in trigger_variables
• Referenced with %varName syntax
• Used in tab titles, auto-resume commands, notification messages
• Cloned when duplicating tabs

Built-in Triggers

aiTerm ships with default triggers for Claude Code workflows:

Trigger	Purpose
claude-resume	Captures claude --resume command
claude-session-id	Extracts UUID from /status output
claude-question	Detects “Do you want to proceed?” prompts
claude-plan-ready	Detects plan ready message
claude-compacting	Notifies during context compaction
claude-compaction-complete	Alerts when compaction finishes
claude-auto-resume	Variable-mode trigger for auto-resume

Default triggers are seeded automatically and can be customized or deleted. Deleted defaults are tracked so they don’t reappear.

Notifications

Triggers can fire notifications through aiTerm’s three-mode notification system:

• Auto (default) — in-app toasts when window is focused, OS notifications when not
• In-app — always show in-app toasts
• Native — always use OS notifications
• Disabled — no notifications

Notifications support deep-linking — clicking a toast or OS notification navigates to the source workspace and tab. Sound alerts are configurable with volume control.