Remove the REPL experience — CLI should be commands only, no interactive session #665
Description
Summary
Remove the built-in REPL/TUI interactive session from the Squad CLI. The CLI should be a series of commands (squad init, squad doctor, squad watch, etc.) — no more interactive REPL mode.
Why
The REPL experience has persistent, fundamental rendering issues:
- Scrollback corruption — messages overlap and bleed into subsequent outputs after extended interaction (TUI scrollback corruption: messages overlap and bleed into subsequent outputs after extended interaction #664)
- Ink
<Static>+ live region coexistence — cursor position drift causes ghost text and viewport collisions - Terminal compatibility — the TUI behaves differently across terminals, widths, and OS environments
- Maintenance burden — we've patched around these issues before (see App.js line 305 comments) but they keep recurring
The REPL is causing more trouble than it is worth. The GitHub Copilot CLI provides a significantly better interactive experience — native terminal rendering, no viewport management issues, full agent spawning support.
What changes
- Remove the interactive REPL session mode (
squadwith no subcommand entering the TUI) - Keep all existing CLI subcommands (
init,doctor,watch,upgrade,nap, etc.) - Update documentation to recommend the GitHub Copilot CLI for interactive Squad usage
- Update README and getting-started guides
The Copilot CLI alternative
Users should switch to the GitHub Copilot CLI:
gh extension install github/gh-copilot- Run from your repo root —
squad.agent.mdis picked up automatically - All team commands and agent workflows work natively
Community contributions welcome
If someone wants to submit a better REPL experience in the future, that door is open. But the current implementation is being removed because it's actively harming the user experience.
Related
- TUI scrollback corruption: messages overlap and bleed into subsequent outputs after extended interaction #664 — TUI scrollback corruption report