Add prompt deep links for new workspaces

[panrafal]

Linked issue

Closes #

Type of change

• Bug fix
• New feature
• Enhancement
• Refactor
• Docs

Reasoning

New-workspace links could select a host, project, directory, and draft, but users still had to copy and paste the task they wanted to start.

This change adds a q query parameter that prefills the new workspace composer without submitting it. Both paseo://new?q=... and https://paseo.sh/new?q=... are supported, allowing users to review or edit the prepared prompt before starting their workspace.

Goals

• Accept an encoded prompt through the /new q query parameter.
• Support q in both paseo://new links and https://paseo.sh/new redirects.
• Preserve the existing serverId, dir, name, projectId, and draftId parameters.
• Prefill chat and terminal composers without automatically submitting the prompt.
• Handle desktop cold starts and links opened while Paseo is already running.
• Redact q from desktop launch-argument diagnostic logs.
• Add automated coverage for app routing, website redirects, and desktop window routing.

Non-goals

• Automatically submit the prompt or start an agent.
• Support prompts in the URL fragment.
• Guarantee prompt confidentiality from HTTP servers, proxies, browser history, or request logs; q is an ordinary query parameter.
• Change the meaning of existing /new parameters.
• Add universal-link association or an app-install fallback.
• Change the new workspace screen’s visual design.
• Change the app/daemon protocol.

QA

Requester verification:

• Manually confirmed that the resulting deep link works end to end.

Focused unit tests:

npx vitest run \
  packages/app/src/navigation/new-workspace-route-params.test.ts \
  packages/desktop/src/new-workspace-navigation.test.ts \
  packages/desktop/src/window/desktop-window-owner.test.ts \
  packages/website/src/new-workspace-deep-link.test.ts \
  --bail=1

Test Files  4 passed (4)
Tests       15 passed (15)

Real-browser regression:

npm run test:e2e --workspace=@getpaseo/app -- \
  e2e/browser/new-workspace-deep-link.spec.ts

✓ a new-workspace deep link preserves query context and prefills its prompt
1 passed (31.9s)

The Playwright test:

• Opens /new with serverId, name=TEst, and an encoded multiline q.
• Confirms all query parameters remain intact and the URL has no fragment.
• Confirms the message composer contains the decoded prompt.
• Uses an isolated daemon on a temporary port; port 6767 is explicitly blocked by the fixture.
• Stops both the isolated daemon and Metro after the test.

Website redirect verification:

GET /new?name=TEst&q=Just%20testing

HTTP/1.1 307 Temporary Redirect
location: paseo://new?name=TEst&q=Just%20testing

Additional checks:

npm run typecheck
Result: passed

npm run lint
Result: 0 warnings and 0 errors

npm run format
Result: passed

npm run format:check
Result: passed

npm run build --workspace=@getpaseo/website
Result: passed

Platform	Tested	Notes
iOS	No	Not manually tested
Android	No	Not manually tested
Web	Yes	Real Playwright composer flow and live website redirect tested
Desktop macOS	Partial	Deep-link parsing and window routing covered by automated tests
Desktop Windows	Partial	Deep-link parsing and window routing covered by automated tests
Desktop Linux	Partial	Deep-link parsing and window routing covered by automated tests

No visual layout changes are intended; the browser test verifies the changed composer behavior directly.

Checklist

• One focused change
• npm run typecheck passes
• npm run lint passes
• npm run format passes
• QA evidence
• Tests added or updated where it made sense

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Codex Review Summary

This comment shows the latest Codex review activity on this pull request.

Review	Status	Commit	Review trigger
📝 Code Review	✅ Completed 2026-09-01T20:49:16.639534Z	2f3405b	PR opened
🔒 Security Review	✅ Completed 2026-09-01T20:54:13.441096Z	2f3405b	PR opened

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[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

Adds prompt-prefilling support to new-workspace deep links without automatically submitting the prompt.

• Carries the q parameter through app, desktop, and website routing.
• Seeds chat and terminal composers and clears drafts after successful terminal creation.
• Redacts prompt values from desktop launch diagnostics.
• Adds focused unit and browser coverage for the routing flow.

Confidence Score: 5/5

The PR appears safe to merge.

No blocking failure remains.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
packages/app/src/screens/new-workspace-screen.tsx	Seeds the composer after draft hydration and initializes terminal prompt text from the deep-link query.
packages/desktop/src/main.ts	Routes new-workspace links during cold starts and subsequent desktop invocations while redacting prompt diagnostics.
packages/website/src/routes/new.tsx	Registers the website endpoint that redirects new-workspace requests to the desktop app scheme.
packages/app/e2e/browser/new-workspace-deep-link.spec.ts	Verifies the user-visible deep-link prefill behavior through a focused domain helper.

_{Reviews (10): Last reviewed commit: "Add prompt deep links for new workspaces" | Re-trigger Greptile}

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

💡 Codex Review

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Reviewed commit: 2f3405bd56

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[Laokashouji]

Plugin-initiated prefill: routing works, q is the missing piece

I'm building a plugin whose sidebar lists scheduled tasks from an internal platform. Each row should have a button that opens a new session prefilled with that task's config and recent run history, so the user can review and edit before sending.

I probed this against 0.7.2 from plugin surface code, three ways:

1. Linking.openURL("paseo://new?q=...") — OS-level handoff, launches a new desktop window on the welcome screen, not connected to any daemon.
2. Linking.openURL("paseo://app/new?serverId=<id>&q=...") — still a new window, but connected this time.
3. history.pushState(null, "", "/new?serverId=<id>&q=...") plus a synthetic popstate — navigates in place, lands on the new-workspace screen. Composer is empty, as expected since this PR isn't merged.

So the in-app path already works; q is the only missing piece. Once this lands, a plugin can navigate to a prefilled composer without any new API.

Why plugins need it: paseo.agents.create({ prompt }) submits immediately, and attachments gets flattened into the first user message with externalResource dropped. There's currently no way to land text in a composer without starting a turn. #4306's addDraftAction rewrites an existing draft, which doesn't cover creating one from a sidebar.

Two questions:

• Is pushState + popstate the sanctioned way for a plugin surface to navigate in-app, or is there an intended API? navigation currently exposes only openAgent and openWorkspace.
• Would q be read on every mount of /new, or only on cold deep-link entry? In-app navigation needs the former.

Happy to test a build.

[boudra]

Closing this feature PR. Please describe the workflow and shared need in Discussions, as described in CONTRIBUTING.md.

[panrafal]

@boudra why not have some discussion over implemented code instead of closing them outright, especially on PRs that add functionality broadly available in similar tools and expected. In discussions there are lots of requests without response so it gets buried - here at least we can talk over an implementation