Native SSH Session Inheritance

[yvessigner]

Currently, when I am running an SSH session in Ghostty and open a new split or window, it spawns a fresh local shell. This breaks flow when working on remote servers, as I have to manually re-SSH and navigate back to my working directory. I know tmux is great but I would love to preserve the native UI and config simplicity that ghostty provides.

Possibly handling this via a wrapper (e.g..ghossty ssh) that automatically sets up ControlMaster sockets for connection reuse. Detects when a split is requested from an active SSH pane. Automatically connects the new pane to the same host (reusing the socket) and persists the working directory.

Context Awareness

When a user splits a pane while an SSH session is active, Ghostty should detect the remote host.

Connection Reuse

The new split should automatically connect to the same host using a shared ControlMaster socket.

Directory Persistence

The new split should open in the same remote working directory as the parent pane.

Configuration / Keybinds

Ideally, this would be the default behavior for new_split when inside an SSH session. However, to allow users to spawn a local shell if needed, we could have distinct actions:

Standard Split (Cmd+D): inherits SSH if active, otherwise local.

Force Local Split (Cmd+Shift+D/N): Always opens a local shell, even if the current pane/window is SSH.

Alternative Implementation

If automatic detection is too complex, a dedicated keybind action new_split:inherit_ssh would be a great middle ground.

[yvessigner]

I've seen two similar proposals in other discussion but have elaborated on mine to include ideas for specific implementation. there is some overlap, I hope this still warrants attention.