Live Activity and background behavior

The Live Activity

While at least one server is connected, SigilTTY shows a single Live Activity on the Lock Screen — and in the Dynamic Island on iPhone models that have one. It is one aggregate activity for the whole app, not one per session: it appears when your first connection goes live, updates as connections come and go, and disappears the moment the last one closes.

Turn it off under Settings › General › Live Activity. It is on by default, and the switch takes effect immediately — turning it off dismisses the current activity, turning it back on mid-session picks the elapsed timer back up where it was.

The Suspended state

Once iOS suspends SigilTTY in the background, the app can no longer update the activity. Rather than leave a stale timer ticking, the activity dims and shows Suspended — that is the honest reading: “this is what the app knew when it was last running.” Open SigilTTY again and it refreshes right away.

Locking your iPhone

Locking the screen or switching apps does not kill your sessions instantly. SigilTTY holds connections open for roughly 30 seconds so a quick glance at another app doesn’t cost you your shell.

That window is the iOS ceiling, not a preference — SigilTTY does not run persistently in the background. Sessions that outlive it are dropped by the system, and reconnect when you come back; see Reconnecting. The keep-alive window works whether or not the Live Activity is switched on.

Agent events

While the app is in the background keep-alive window and an attached AI agent turns blocked or finishes, iPhone models with a Dynamic Island are alerted through this Live Activity instead of a notification banner. The expanded view shows the event in orange — “agent needs attention” or “agent finished”, with the time it happened — and after the island collapses, a persistent orange exclamation mark stays in place of the usual session count, so the event remains visible at a glance until you return to the app.

Models without a Dynamic Island, and iPad, get a regular notification instead. For the full story of agent alerts — including notifications that reach you after SigilTTY is closed — see Agent notifications.