And screen(1) https://linux.die.net/man/1/screen

Don't forget tmux(1) https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki

er, the context in this subthread is tmux alternatives

The context is "you don't need an entire terminal multiplexer such as Tmux when all you need is pseudo-tty".

Bringing another terminal multiplexer isn't an alternative. In my agent, I use pseudo-tty without any tmuxes/screens.

No, it wasn't, and I think you've missed the joke.

"tmux capture-pane" strips escape sequences that break the terminal and sets all the right variables; try using expect with e.g. neovim

You right, it's pseudo terminal needed. The module pty of python can do this

maybe I'm biased, but python feels like endless boilerplate for unixy stuff

also I'm mostly using it to prepare an interactive environment anyway, so I don't see alternatives for my usecase (maybe zellij, but they don't even support sending keystrokes to a specific pane)

I did use a shell script and script(1) to automate vi. Don't see the issue?

I suppose things that cause most of the problems don't exist in vi, eg (24 bit) color, image protocols or $TERM dependent features

These are all great. If you need to do something more involved, pexpect is also worth mentioning. It's a reimplementation of expect in python that's easy to be productive with quickly.

I used it in a previous job to automate configuring thousands of network devices