Terminal frontier

Frontier config is the lightweight, optional terminal layer that ships with the runtime: a starship prompt with repo and runtime context, atuin searchable history tuned for project recall, and dormant vc-frame dashboard layouts. None of it is required — vibecrafted works without any of it — and none of it bulldozes your existing terminal setup.

What it gives you

Component	What it adds
starship	Prompt showing directory, git branch and dirty state, Python/Node/Rust context, and the active agent and runtime while a spawn is running
atuin	Fuzzy history with workspace-first filtering, home-scope fallback, preview-enabled recall, noise filtering for trivial commands
shell	`atuin-up.zsh` — keyboard Up opens Atuin; mouse wheel stays host scrollback via the Alacritty preset
alacritty	Optional host sidecars (wheel `~Alt`/`Alt` split + primary-shell launcher); never overwrites `~/.config/alacritty`
vc-frame	Repo-owned `config.kdl` and dashboard layouts that stay dormant until you launch them

Opt in

brew install starship atuin     # or your distro's packages
make install                    # from a local checkout
vc-frontier-paths               # inspect the resolved config paths

Install or refresh the frontier sidecars at any time:

vc-frontier-install

The installer places all assets under $HOME/.config/vetcoders/frontier/ — not into your global $HOME/.config/starship.toml or $HOME/.config/vc-frame. If vc-frame is on your machine, the same command also stages the repo-owned config.kdl and dashboard layouts. Nothing activates until you run a dashboard command or point your shell at those files:

vibecrafted dashboard

During a full install, frontier staging runs from the installed runtime generation (the vibecrafted-current tree), and a failure there is non-fatal — the install proceeds and prints a warning.

Opt out

Frontier is opt-in by construction:

Skip vc-frontier-install and no frontier files are staged.
Staged files are inert until referenced — your shell keeps its own prompt and history config.
Removing the layer means deleting $HOME/.config/vetcoders/frontier/ and any lines you added to your shell config yourself.

If you already run your shell inside a vc-frame session, spawned agents still reuse panes automatically whether or not you install the repo-owned dashboards.

Config resolution

The helper layer resolves each artifact independently, first match wins:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vetcoders/frontier/
$VIBECRAFTED_HOME/tools/vibecrafted-current/config/
$VIBECRAFTED_ROOT/config/
<current vibecrafted repo>/config/

Per-asset resolution means a companion config can override only the vc-frame bits while the runtime still provides the prompt and history defaults — or provide a single layout without shadowing anything else.

Check what is actually resolved on your machine:

vc-frontier-paths

The installed-root rule

Active frontier configuration must resolve inside the installed root, never inside a repository checkout. This is enforced twice:

At publication — a new runtime generation fails to publish if generated vc-frame configuration references the source checkout. The generation manifest carries SHA-256 digests for the generated vc-frame configuration.
Continuously — vibecrafted doctor audits the installed artifact and fails on checkout-linked config or drifted manifest-bound files.

If doctor reports checkout-linked frontier config, re-run the install so the config is regenerated into the current generation — see Common issues.

Configuration — the full directory-surface map.
Doctor — how the frontier audit is reported.