Keep drawing the terminal after Android takes the GPU context away

The phone's terminal was blank whenever it was connected. Not slow, not
mis-sized, not disconnected: a live session accepting keystrokes, acknowledging
output and drawing nothing at all.

◆ THE WEBGL ADDON DOES NOT RECOVER FROM A LOST CONTEXT AND DOES NOT FAIL LOUDLY.
It stays loaded over a dead context and renders an empty rectangle, which is
xterm's documented behaviour and the reason its guidance is to subscribe to
onContextLoss and dispose. This page never did, and until there was a phone
there was no reason to notice.

Losing the context is ordinary on Android and nearly unheard of on Windows,
which is what made this a one-head bug in shared code. Collapsing the renderer
sets the native view to GONE — Avalonia's AndroidNativeControlHostImpl.HideWithSize,
read out of the assembly rather than guessed at — and a WebView with no surface
has no GL context. The shell collapses it every time a tab starts connecting,
every time the connect sheet opens and every time the app is backgrounded. Worse,
the ordering guarantees it for the first session on every launch: OpenSessionAsync
sends SESSION_OPENED before the tab reports a session, so IsTerminalShowing is
still false and the pane, the terminal and its GL context are all built inside a
collapsed WebView. WebView2 hides a child HWND and keeps rendering throughout,
which docs/platform-flags.md measured at length.

The addon is not reloaded after a loss. A pane that lost the context once is on a
surface that will do it again, and thrashing between renderers is worse than being
slow — the DOM renderer is what the existing fallback comment already argues for,
because a blank pane is not usable and a slow one is.

The comment above MINIMUM_FITTABLE_PIXELS was wrong for this head and is corrected
with it. It asserted that collapsing the WebView leaves this page's viewport alone,
so no observer fires and the guard protects nothing — true of a hidden child HWND,
false of a GONE view, which its parent's layout skips outright. On the phone the
guard is the only thing standing between a lock, a connect sheet or a trip to the
background and a remote pty reflowed to 2x1.

Also on the way past: the renderer-timeout message told phone users to install the
Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime. That is the other blank-terminal failure mode's
message, and naming a runtime that cannot exist on the device is worse than saying
nothing at the one moment somebody is trying to work out what went wrong. It now
names Android's own WebView on that head, as a runtime check for the reason
MainWindowViewModel.GestureWait records beside its own.

Not verified on a device — there is no handset or emulator here, and no test
covers this page. The diagnosis is the decompiled hide path plus xterm's own
requirement, not an observation. 523 tests over the shell and the terminal pass,
and both heads build.

docs/design-import-gaps.md

@@ -720,3 +720,24 @@ grid of cards with a drawer — see above. The split it describes did not change
 running, so a tab list rebuilt per unlock would lose track of sessions that are still connected — the very
 sessions the unlock screen already counts. `TerminalWorkspace` gained `SessionActivated` on the wire,
 `IsSessionLive`, and a `SessionEnded` event so a tab can stop claiming to be connected.
+
+---
+
+## v5c-4 — two more, asked for after living with v5b
+
+**The session shell's host header is gone, and it is a deliberate departure from the design.**
+`Terminal.dc.html` and `SFTP.dc.html` both draw a 60-pixel row above the pane carrying the address on the
+left and a cross-surface button on the right, and v5b shipped it as `SessionHeader.axaml`. Both of the two
+facts it held now live at the head of the sidebar beside the pane — the address as its own line, and the
+button stretched across the column under it — and the pane is 60 pixels taller for it. The reasoning is the
+one the design cannot see from a mock: this is a window somebody keeps a terminal open in all day, and a
+full-width strip repeating an address the tab already names was the cheapest 60 pixels in the layout to give
+back. `LayoutHarness.SessionScreenHeight` no longer subtracts a header, for the same reason it stopped
+subtracting the retired window-wide tab strip.
+
+**The sidebar closes, which the design has no state for.** 300 pixels of a 1081-pixel minimum is a lot to
+spend on a list that is often two rows long, so `MainWindowViewModel.IsSessionSidebarOpen` folds the column
+to a 34-pixel rail carrying the chevron that brings it back — a rail rather than nothing, because a panel
+that vanishes without trace is one people report as lost. The choice is written through to
+`ClientSettings.SessionSidebarOpen` rather than held for the session: it is a decision about how much of the
+window a terminal gets, and one that had to be made again on every launch would not really be on offer.

src/DodoSSH.Client.Android/Theme/Phone.axaml

@@ -436,6 +436,20 @@
     <Setter Property="Fill" Value="{StaticResource Live}" />
   </Style>
 
+  <!--
+    Amber, and it does not contradict the remark above. That one says green is a fact about a host rather
+    than an accent, and this is the colour for a fact that is not settled yet: green is what is true, purple
+    is what you can press, and a connection still being made is neither. The palette's own rule gives amber
+    to the caveat worth reading, which is exactly what this is.
+
+    Only the tab strips use it, and only for a tab with no shell behind it yet — the same amber, from the
+    same brush, as the track and the running step on the connecting screen, so that a tab and the screen it
+    opens agree about what is happening. See TerminalScreen.axaml.
+  -->
+  <Style Selector="Ellipse.dot.connecting">
+    <Setter Property="Fill" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+  </Style>
+
   <!-- Every label, count, address and fingerprint in this design is monospace. See Palette.axaml. -->
   <Style Selector="TextBlock.mono">
     <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="{StaticResource MonoFont}" />

src/DodoSSH.Client.Android/Views/PhoneShell.axaml

@@ -320,8 +320,14 @@
                         which was true when a tab could not exist without a session; one can now —
                         connecting opens the tab first — and a dot that was green before anything had
                         answered would be the one thing on this strip claiming something untrue.
+
+                        Amber while it is being made, which is the other half of that correction. Not being
+                        green stopped the dot lying, but it left a tab still dialling drawn exactly like a
+                        tab whose shell has exited — the two states on this strip with the least in common,
+                        one worth waiting for and one over. See Phone.axaml.
                       -->
-                      <Ellipse Classes="dot" Classes.live="{Binding IsLive}" Width="6" Height="6"
+                      <Ellipse Classes="dot" Classes.live="{Binding IsLive}"
+                               Classes.connecting="{Binding IsConnecting}" Width="6" Height="6"
                                VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                       <TextBlock Classes="mono" FontSize="11" Text="{Binding Label}" />
                     </StackPanel>

src/DodoSSH.Client.Android/Views/TerminalScreen.axaml

@@ -33,6 +33,85 @@
     gesture does the same thing the arrow does.
   -->
 
+  <UserControl.Styles>
+
+    <!--
+      ── the connecting step list ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+      The same five rows the desktop's ConnectingCard draws, from the same reported phases, in this head's
+      own sizes. Kept here rather than in Phone.axaml because nothing else on this head has a step list —
+      the theme file is for what more than one screen shares, and a rule that exists for one control is
+      easier to read beside it.
+
+      Amber for the step in flight, green behind it, red where it stopped. That is the palette's rule
+      rather than an exception to it: green is what is true and purple is what you can press, and a step
+      still happening is neither. See ConnectingCard.axaml for the longer version of this argument, and
+      Palette.axaml for the rule itself.
+
+      A phone needs this more than a desktop does, which is the same thing the connecting block below
+      already says about itself: mobile links are slower and drop more often, so the stretch this describes
+      is longer here and more likely to end badly.
+    -->
+    <!--
+      Its own FontFamily rather than the row also carrying the mono class, which is this head's convention
+      and not a stylistic preference: Phone.axaml's mono sets a colour and a size along with the family, so
+      a caption wearing both classes would be asking two rules for one Foreground and settling it on style
+      ordering. Every other text class here — body, label, title, detail — names its own family for exactly
+      that reason. The desktop's mono sets the family alone, which is why ConnectingCard composes the two
+      and this does not.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption">
+      <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="{StaticResource MonoFont}" />
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextFaint}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="11" />
+      <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.done">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextDim}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.running">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource WarnText}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="SemiBold" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource DangerText}" />
+    </Style>
+
+    <!-- Fixed width and centred: four different characters on a ragged edge is a list that looks broken. -->
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="11" />
+      <Setter Property="Width" Value="13" />
+      <Setter Property="TextAlignment" Value="Center" />
+      <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.done">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Live}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.running">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Danger}" />
+    </Style>
+
+    <!--
+      4 rather than the desktop's 5, which is the only deliberate difference between the two heads here:
+      this bar sits in a column 24 from each edge of a 360dp screen rather than under a 460-wide card, so
+      the same height reads as a heavier rule across a narrower span.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="ProgressBar.steptrack">
+      <Setter Property="Height" Value="4" />
+      <Setter Property="MinHeight" Value="4" />
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="2" />
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Chip}" />
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="ProgressBar.steptrack.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Danger}" />
+    </Style>
+
+  </UserControl.Styles>
+
   <Panel>
 
   <Grid RowDefinitions="Auto,*,Auto">
@@ -97,8 +176,12 @@
                             Command="{Binding $parent[views:TerminalScreen].((vm:MainWindowViewModel)DataContext).SelectTabCommand}"
                             CommandParameter="{Binding}">
                       <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="7" VerticalAlignment="Center">
-                        <!-- Green only while there is a shell behind it; see the same dot in PhoneShell. -->
-                        <Ellipse Classes="dot" Classes.live="{Binding IsLive}" Width="6" Height="6"
+                        <!--
+                          Green only while there is a shell behind it, amber while one is being made; see
+                          the same dot in PhoneShell, and Phone.axaml for why amber is not a rule broken.
+                        -->
+                        <Ellipse Classes="dot" Classes.live="{Binding IsLive}"
+                                 Classes.connecting="{Binding IsConnecting}" Width="6" Height="6"
                                  VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                         <TextBlock Classes="mono" FontSize="12" FontWeight="SemiBold"
                                    Text="{Binding Label}" />
@@ -284,11 +367,70 @@
         <TextBlock Classes="title" FontSize="13" Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Label}" />
         <TextBlock Classes="detail" FontSize="11" Foreground="{StaticResource TextDim}"
                    TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Address}" />
-        <TextBlock Classes="body" Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Status}" />
-        <Button Classes="row" MinHeight="44" Padding="14,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left"
-                Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}">
-          <TextBlock Classes="label" FontSize="9" Text="CLOSE THIS TAB" />
-        </Button>
+
+        <!--
+          Where a single unchanging "connecting…" used to be. The track counts steps that really finished
+          against the five there are — StepsDone over StepCount, never a percentage, because the arithmetic
+          that makes a percentage is the arithmetic that starts inventing one. See TerminalTabViewModel.
+
+          Drawn for both states rather than once per state: a refused connection has the same five rows and
+          the same track, and the only differences are that one row is red and the track stops where it got
+          to. Two templates kept identical for the sake of a colour is how the two drift apart.
+        -->
+        <ProgressBar Classes="steptrack" Classes.stopped="{Binding SelectedTab.IsFailed}"
+                     Minimum="0" Maximum="{Binding SelectedTab.StepCount}"
+                     Value="{Binding SelectedTab.StepsDone, Mode=OneWay}" />
+
+        <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedTab.Steps}">
+          <ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
+            <ItemsPanelTemplate>
+              <StackPanel Spacing="6" />
+            </ItemsPanelTemplate>
+          </ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
+          <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+            <DataTemplate x:DataType="vm:ConnectionStepViewModel">
+              <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="9">
+                <TextBlock Classes="stepmark"
+                           Classes.done="{Binding IsDone}"
+                           Classes.running="{Binding IsRunning}"
+                           Classes.stopped="{Binding IsStopped}"
+                           Text="{Binding Mark}" />
+                <TextBlock Classes="stepcaption"
+                           Classes.done="{Binding IsDone}"
+                           Classes.running="{Binding IsRunning}"
+                           Classes.stopped="{Binding IsStopped}"
+                           Text="{Binding Caption}" />
+              </StackPanel>
+            </DataTemplate>
+          </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+        </ItemsControl>
+
+        <!--
+          Only for a refusal now. While a connection is being made this used to be the whole of what this
+          screen said, and it is now the step list's running row said twice — so it is shown for the one
+          state the list cannot put into words: why it stopped.
+        -->
+        <TextBlock Classes="body" Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Status}"
+                   Foreground="{StaticResource Danger}"
+                   IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsFailed}" />
+
+        <!--
+          Two 44-high targets side by side rather than one, and the second is the logs: the step list is
+          this attempt and the log is every other one, which is the question a connection that is taking too
+          long on a mobile link actually raises — has this machine ever worked from here. Reached the
+          ordinary way, through ShowScreenCommand, exactly as the rail and MORE reach it.
+        -->
+        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="8" HorizontalAlignment="Left">
+          <Button Classes="row" MinHeight="44" Padding="14,0"
+                  Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}">
+            <TextBlock Classes="label" FontSize="9" Text="CLOSE THIS TAB" />
+          </Button>
+          <Button Classes="row" MinHeight="44" Padding="14,0"
+                  Command="{Binding ShowScreenCommand}"
+                  CommandParameter="{x:Static vm:ShellScreen.Logs}">
+            <TextBlock Classes="label" FontSize="9" Text="SHOW LOGS" />
+          </Button>
+        </StackPanel>
       </StackPanel>
 
       <!--

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml

@@ -475,11 +475,34 @@
       <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Track}" />
     </Style>
 
+    <!--
+      The user popover itself: the panel the rail's chip opens, in this window's own idiom rather than the
+      theme's. The shared MenuFlyoutPresenter rule further down this file gives every popup Chrome and a
+      4-pixel radius, which is right for a context menu and wrong for this one — the design draws the account
+      menu as a rounded card, the same radius-12 shape as every other floating surface here. Reached with
+      FlyoutPresenterClasses from NavRail.axaml rather than by widening that rule, so a right-click menu two
+      screens away does not quietly become a card as well.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="FlyoutPresenter.poppanel">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Raised}" />
+      <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
+      <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="1" />
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="12" />
+      <Setter Property="Padding" Value="8" />
+    </Style>
+
     <!--
       A row inside the user popover: a vault switch, "New vault", Settings, Preferences, Vaults, Logout. All
       six share one shape — flat, a track fill under the pointer, 8 pixels of rounding — because the popover
       draws them as one list and a row that looked different from its neighbours would read as a separator
       that is not one.
+
+      ◆ FLAT MEANS SAYING SO, which this rule did not. It set a corner radius and a padding and left the
+      Background alone, so every row wore the Fluent theme's own button fill and its border: six raised pills
+      stacked in a menu, where the design draws six lines of text that light up under the pointer. The hover
+      rule below was already right and was simply invisible against a fill that was there all along. Set on
+      the ContentPresenter as well as on the Button, the same as Button.flat does and for the same reason —
+      the theme's template binds its own brush there, and a Background set only on the control loses to it.
     -->
     <Style Selector="Button.poprow">
       <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Stretch" />
@@ -488,14 +511,20 @@
       <Setter Property="Padding" Value="11,4" />
       <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
       <Setter Property="MinHeight" Value="20" />
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent" />
+      <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="0" />
     </Style>
     <Style Selector="Button.poprow /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent" />
       <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="0" />
       <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
     </Style>
     <Style Selector="Button.poprow:pointerover /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
       <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Track}" />
     </Style>
+    <Style Selector="Button.poprow:pressed /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Track}" />
+    </Style>
 
     <!--
       The check square beside a shown vault in the popover — magenta rather than the accent, because the
@@ -594,10 +623,13 @@
     </Style>
 
     <!--
-      ── v5b: THE HOST HEADER'S "OPEN SFTP" / "OPEN TERMINAL" GHOST BUTTON ───────────────────────────────
+      ── v5b: THE "OPEN SFTP" / "OPEN TERMINAL" GHOST BUTTON ─────────────────────────────────────────────
       A ghost button distinct from <c>Button.ghost</c> above: this one's resting border is <c>BorderHover</c>
       rather than <c>BorderMid</c> — the mock's own inset ring for this one control — and the design gives it
-      no filled hover, only the border turning to the accent. See <c>SessionHeader.axaml</c>.
+      no filled hover, only the border turning to the accent.
+
+      Named for the host header it was drawn for, which v5c-4 retired; the button itself moved intact to the
+      head of the session sidebar and is stretched across that column there. See <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c>.
     -->
     <Style Selector="Button.headerghost">
       <Setter Property="Height" Value="32" />
@@ -643,6 +675,30 @@
       <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Track}" />
     </Style>
 
+    <!--
+      ── v5c-4: THE SIDEBAR'S OWN CLOSE AND REOPEN ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+      One class for both, because they are one control in two states — a 26-pixel square carrying a chevron,
+      at the head of the column when it is open and at the head of the rail when it is not. Square rather
+      than the 33-tall rows below it: it is chrome belonging to the panel, not an entry in the list the panel
+      is holding, and matching the rows' shape would have offered it as one.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="Button.sidebargrip">
+      <Setter Property="Width" Value="26" />
+      <Setter Property="Height" Value="26" />
+      <Setter Property="MinWidth" Value="0" />
+      <Setter Property="MinHeight" Value="0" />
+      <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Center" />
+      <Setter Property="HorizontalContentAlignment" Value="Center" />
+      <Setter Property="VerticalContentAlignment" Value="Center" />
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="Button.sidebargrip /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="8" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="Button.sidebargrip:pointerover /template/ ContentPresenter#PART_ContentPresenter">
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Track}" />
+    </Style>
+
     <!--
       The "+ Pin folder" / "+ Add Snip" row at the foot of each section: 30 tall rather than 33, and its own
       quieter foreground — the mock draws these as the same greyed-out "add" idiom in both sections.
@@ -1169,6 +1225,16 @@
       <Setter Property="Fill" Value="{StaticResource Live}" />
     </Style>
 
+    <!--
+      Amber, and it does not contradict the rule above it. Green is what is true and this is not yet true;
+      purple is what you can press and a dot is not pressable. What is left is the caveat colour, which is
+      exactly what a connection still being made is. The same amber the connecting card's track uses, from
+      the same brush, so that the tab and the card the tab opens agree.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="Ellipse.dot.connecting">
+      <Setter Property="Fill" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+    </Style>
+
     <!--
       The accent strip a selected row carries, drawn by the row template rather than by the item, because the
       item's presenter is the thing the theme keeps repainting.

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/ConnectingCard.axaml

@@ -15,6 +15,28 @@
     Showing the last terminal's pane would be a lie, and showing nothing reads as the application having
     broken, so this says which machine, as whom, and how far along it is.
 
+    ── The step list, and why it is amber ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+    "How far along it is" used to be one line of prose that never changed after the tab was created, which
+    made every slow connection look exactly like every hung one. It is now the five steps of actually
+    getting there, each lit at the moment the handshake reports it — see SshConnectionPhase, which names
+    only the boundaries a client can genuinely observe. A connection that stops therefore stops on a named
+    row, and "the host key is being checked" stops being the same screen as "the host is not answering".
+
+    Amber for the step in flight, and that is the palette's rule rather than an exception to it. Green is
+    what is true and purple is what you can press; a step still happening is neither, and it is precisely
+    the caveat-worth-reading amber exists for — see the remark above Warn in Palette.axaml. Steps behind it
+    go green as they become true, and the one a refusal landed on goes red. Nothing on the list is drawn in
+    the accent, because there is nothing on it to press.
+
+    Nothing here animates, which is the argument the transfer strip makes for its own track in
+    TransfersScreen.axaml, arriving at a screen with more reason to want a spinner. A spinner is furniture
+    invented to fill a state nobody measured; these steps are measured, so the track fills to what has
+    actually finished and then waits there. Waiting is what waiting looks like.
+
+    The list is drawn for both states rather than once per state. A refused connection has the same five
+    rows and the same track — the difference is only that one row is red and the track stops — and drawing
+    it twice would be two templates to keep identical for the sake of a colour.
+
     It obeys the occlusion rule the whole window obeys: this is Avalonia-drawn content in the WebView's own
     rectangle, so the shell collapses the terminal while it is up. IsTerminalShowing and IsConnectingShowing
     are exclusive by construction — a selected tab either has a session or it does not — which is what makes
@@ -24,8 +46,69 @@
     can be laid out by a test: WebView2's adapter refuses the headless session's thread.
   -->
 
+  <UserControl.Styles>
+
+    <!--
+      A rule per lit state over one quiet default, so that the pending weight is stated once and each state
+      that differs from it is the one line that says how.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextFaint}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="12" />
+      <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.done">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource TextDim}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.running">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource WarnText}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Medium" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepcaption.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource DangerText}" />
+    </Style>
+
+    <!--
+      The marker beside each caption. Fixed width and centred, because four different characters on a
+      ragged left edge is a list that looks broken; see ConnectionStepViewModel.Mark for which they are.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
+      <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="12" />
+      <Setter Property="Width" Value="14" />
+      <Setter Property="TextAlignment" Value="Center" />
+      <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.done">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Live}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.running">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="TextBlock.stepmark.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Danger}" />
+    </Style>
+
+    <!--
+      The track over the list. Amber while the attempt is alive and red once it is not, so that the bar says
+      the same thing as the row it stopped on rather than staying the colour of something still being waited
+      for. Chip underneath, matching the transfer strip's track.
+    -->
+    <Style Selector="ProgressBar.steptrack">
+      <Setter Property="Height" Value="5" />
+      <Setter Property="MinHeight" Value="5" />
+      <Setter Property="CornerRadius" Value="3" />
+      <Setter Property="Background" Value="{StaticResource Chip}" />
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Warn}" />
+    </Style>
+    <Style Selector="ProgressBar.steptrack.stopped">
+      <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource Danger}" />
+    </Style>
+
+  </UserControl.Styles>
+
   <Panel>
-    <StackPanel VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Spacing="14" MaxWidth="460"
+    <StackPanel VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Spacing="18" MaxWidth="460"
                 Margin="24">
 
       <StackPanel Spacing="6" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
@@ -38,15 +121,43 @@
       </StackPanel>
 
       <!--
-        Two states, deliberately different. Waiting is an accent line under the host's name; a refusal is
-        the reason, in the palette's red, because it is the only place the reason will be after the user
-        navigates away from the screen that started the connection.
+        Bound to StepsDone against StepCount rather than to a percentage: five steps and a maximum of five
+        means the bar is a count of things that really finished, and the arithmetic that would turn it into
+        a percentage is exactly the arithmetic that would start inventing one.
       -->
-      <TextBlock Classes="mono" Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Status}" FontSize="12"
-                 Foreground="{StaticResource Accent}" HorizontalAlignment="Center"
-                 TextWrapping="Wrap" TextAlignment="Center"
-                 IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsConnecting}" />
+      <ProgressBar Classes="steptrack" Classes.stopped="{Binding SelectedTab.IsFailed}"
+                   Minimum="0" Maximum="{Binding SelectedTab.StepCount}"
+                   Value="{Binding SelectedTab.StepsDone, Mode=OneWay}" />
 
+      <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedTab.Steps}" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
+        <ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
+          <ItemsPanelTemplate>
+            <StackPanel Spacing="7" />
+          </ItemsPanelTemplate>
+        </ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
+        <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+          <DataTemplate x:DataType="vm:ConnectionStepViewModel">
+            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
+              <TextBlock Classes="stepmark"
+                         Classes.done="{Binding IsDone}"
+                         Classes.running="{Binding IsRunning}"
+                         Classes.stopped="{Binding IsStopped}"
+                         Text="{Binding Mark}" />
+              <TextBlock Classes="stepcaption mono"
+                         Classes.done="{Binding IsDone}"
+                         Classes.running="{Binding IsRunning}"
+                         Classes.stopped="{Binding IsStopped}"
+                         Text="{Binding Caption}" />
+            </StackPanel>
+          </DataTemplate>
+        </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+      </ItemsControl>
+
+      <!--
+        A refusal is the reason, in the palette's red, because it is the only place the reason will be after
+        the user navigates away from the screen that started the connection. It sits under the list rather
+        than replacing it: which row it stopped on is half the answer and the sentence is the other half.
+      -->
       <SelectableTextBlock Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Status}" FontSize="13"
                            Foreground="{StaticResource Danger}" HorizontalAlignment="Center"
                            TextWrapping="Wrap" TextAlignment="Center"
@@ -62,14 +173,23 @@
         handshake that finishes afterwards is adopted rather than dropped — see
         MainWindowViewModel.CloseTabAsync. Two buttons rather than one with a converted label, because the
         two are different decisions and only one of them abandons something still running.
-      -->
-      <Button Classes="ghost" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Content="GIVE UP"
-              Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}"
-              IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsConnecting}" />
 
-      <Button Classes="ghost" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Content="CLOSE TAB"
-              Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}" CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}"
-              IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsFailed}" />
+        Beside each, the logs. The step list is this attempt and the log is every other one, which is the
+        question both a connection taking too long and a connection just refused actually raise — has this
+        machine ever worked. It is the ordinary rail destination reached the ordinary way rather than a
+        second log grown inside this card, and leaving by it does not abandon the handshake: the tab stays
+        in the strip and the card is still here on the way back.
+      -->
+      <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
+        <Button Classes="ghost" Content="SHOW LOGS" Command="{Binding ShowScreenCommand}"
+                CommandParameter="{x:Static vm:ShellScreen.Logs}" />
+        <Button Classes="ghost" Content="GIVE UP" Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}"
+                CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}"
+                IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsConnecting}" />
+        <Button Classes="ghost" Content="CLOSE TAB" Command="{Binding CloseTabCommand}"
+                CommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}"
+                IsVisible="{Binding SelectedTab.IsFailed}" />
+      </StackPanel>
 
     </StackPanel>
   </Panel>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/HostsScreen.axaml

@@ -690,7 +690,7 @@
                                   <Border Classes="chip" Height="19" CornerRadius="5" Padding="6,2"
                                           IsVisible="{Binding HasPins}">
                                     <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="3">
-                                      <TextBlock Text="&#xE946;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}"
+                                      <TextBlock Text="&#xF10D;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}"
                                                  FontSize="11" Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}" />
                                       <TextBlock Classes="mono" Text="{Binding PinCount}" FontSize="10.5"
                                                  Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}" />

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/MainWindow.axaml

@@ -148,13 +148,17 @@
                 <Border Grid.Row="1" BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="1"
                         CornerRadius="0,0,12,12" ClipToBounds="True">
                   <Grid ColumnDefinitions="*,Auto">
-                    <Grid Grid.Column="0" RowDefinitions="Auto,*,Auto">
-                      <views:SessionHeader Grid.Row="0"
-                                            OpenLabel="Open terminal"
-                                            OpenCommand="{Binding OpenTerminalForFilesHostCommand}"
-                                            EmptyText="{Binding Transfers.Status}" />
-                      <views:TransfersScreen Grid.Row="1" DataContext="{Binding Transfers}" />
-                      <views:SessionStatusBar Grid.Row="2" />
+                    <!--
+                      v5c-4: two rows rather than three. The 60-pixel host header that used to sit above this
+                      screen is gone; the address and the "Open terminal" button it carried are in the
+                      sidebar now — see SessionSidebar.axaml — and the pane keeps the height. Its third
+                      binding, the Transfers.Status line it printed while no host was open, is not moved
+                      either: TransfersScreen draws that same string itself, both in its own empty state and
+                      beside the remote pane's DISCONNECT once something is open.
+                    -->
+                    <Grid Grid.Column="0" RowDefinitions="*,Auto">
+                      <views:TransfersScreen Grid.Row="0" DataContext="{Binding Transfers}" />
+                      <views:SessionStatusBar Grid.Row="1" />
                     </Grid>
                     <!--
                       Hides when no session is active — see ShowsQuickAccessSidebar — rather than always
@@ -268,14 +272,16 @@
             <Border Grid.Row="1" BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="1"
                     CornerRadius="0,0,12,12" ClipToBounds="True">
               <Grid ColumnDefinitions="*,Auto">
-                <Grid Grid.Column="0" RowDefinitions="Auto,*,Auto">
-                  <views:SessionHeader Grid.Row="0"
-                                        OpenLabel="Open SFTP"
-                                        OpenCommand="{Binding SelectFilesHostCommand}"
-                                        OpenCommandParameter="{Binding SelectedTab}"
-                                        EmptyText="no terminals open · press + or Ctrl+K, or choose a host and press Connect" />
+                <!--
+                  v5c-4: two rows rather than three, the same as the SFTP wrapper above and for the same
+                  reason — the host header is gone and the terminal has its 60 pixels. The empty state it
+                  used to print ("no terminals open · press + or Ctrl+K…") went with it rather than moving:
+                  this Grid is only drawn on the terminal surface, and the surface with no tab open already
+                  answers for itself in the tab row's own "+" and in the connecting card below.
+                -->
+                <Grid Grid.Column="0" RowDefinitions="*,Auto">
 
-                  <Panel Grid.Row="1" Background="{StaticResource Pane}">
+                  <Panel Grid.Row="0" Background="{StaticResource Pane}">
 
                     <!--
                       The other thing that can be in the terminal's rectangle: a tab whose session does not
@@ -300,7 +306,7 @@
 
                   </Panel>
 
-                  <views:SessionStatusBar Grid.Row="2" ShowsEncoding="True" />
+                  <views:SessionStatusBar Grid.Row="1" ShowsEncoding="True" />
                 </Grid>
                 <!--
                   Hides when no session is active — see ShowsQuickAccessSidebar — rather than always drawn:

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/MainWindow.axaml.cs

@@ -268,6 +268,7 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindow : Window
         if (shell is { } previous)
         {
             previous.TerminalSessionOpened -= OnTerminalSessionOpened;
+            previous.TerminalFocusRequested -= OnTerminalFocusRequested;
             previous.PropertyChanged -= OnShellPropertyChanged;
         }
 
@@ -286,6 +287,7 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindow : Window
         wasUnlocked = viewModel.IsUnlocked;
 
         viewModel.TerminalSessionOpened += OnTerminalSessionOpened;
+        viewModel.TerminalFocusRequested += OnTerminalFocusRequested;
         viewModel.PropertyChanged += OnShellPropertyChanged;
     }
 
@@ -298,6 +300,15 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindow : Window
     /// </remarks>
     private void OnTerminalSessionOpened(object? sender, EventArgs e) => FocusTerminalWhenLaidOut();
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The same call for a session that was already open and has just been typed into from the sidebar —
+    /// see <see cref="MainWindowViewModel.TerminalFocusRequested"/>. Posted like every other path here,
+    /// although nothing was revealed this turn: the post also re-checks that a terminal is still showing,
+    /// which is what keeps this from stealing the keyboard if the insert landed the user on the snippets
+    /// screen instead.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private void OnTerminalFocusRequested(object? sender, EventArgs e) => FocusTerminalWhenLaidOut();
+
     /// <remarks>
     /// A dispatch and nothing else. Every arm below is a separate decision about where the keyboard goes,
     /// and they were one method until the four of them stopped fitting in a screenful — which is roughly the

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/NavRail.axaml

@@ -131,13 +131,19 @@
             KEPT — the mock has no screen for approved host keys at all; see the file-level remark. push_pin
             is the same codepoint HostsScreen.axaml already draws for a host's own pin badge, reused rather
             than picked afresh so the one concept reads as one glyph everywhere it appears.
+
+            ◆ U+F10D, not U+E946, which both sites drew until this pass and which no glyph in the embedded
+            face answers to: the cmap of Assets/Fonts/MaterialIcons (Material Icons 1.017, 2019) skips E944
+            and E946, so this row and the hosts screen's own pin badge were both drawing a tofu box. F10D is
+            where push_pin lives in that vintage, verified against the file rather than against a codepoints
+            table for a later release of the font.
           -->
           <Button Classes="flat nav" Classes.active="{Binding IsKnownHostsShowing}"
                   Command="{Binding ShowScreenCommand}"
                   CommandParameter="{x:Static vm:ShellScreen.KnownHosts}"
                   ToolTip.Tip="Host keys you have approved, and how to withdraw one">
             <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
-              <TextBlock Classes="navicon" Text="&#xE946;" />
+              <TextBlock Classes="navicon" Text="&#xF10D;" />
               <TextBlock Classes="navlabel" Text="Pins" />
             </StackPanel>
           </Button>
@@ -191,17 +197,22 @@
         </Grid>
 
         <FlyoutBase.AttachedFlyout>
-          <Flyout Placement="TopEdgeAlignedLeft">
-            <StackPanel Width="227" Spacing="8">
+          <!--
+            FlyoutPresenterClasses, because a Flyout's own panel is not in this markup's visual tree to be
+            styled from here — see FlyoutPresenter.poppanel in App.axaml for what the class carries and why
+            the shared popup rule was not simply widened to cover it.
+          -->
+          <Flyout Placement="TopEdgeAlignedLeft" FlyoutPresenterClasses="poppanel">
+            <StackPanel Width="227" Spacing="4">
 
               <!--
                 The real email, when the server sent one — verified against MainWindowViewModel.Email rather
                 than assumed, and simply absent from the popover when it has not. No " · Org" suffix: there
                 is no organisation concept behind a vault, only the vault itself, which the rows below name.
               -->
-              <TextBlock FontSize="10.5" FontWeight="Medium" LetterSpacing="0.1"
+              <TextBlock FontSize="10.5" FontWeight="Medium" LetterSpacing="0.1" Margin="11,4,11,6"
                          Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}"
-                         Text="{Binding Email}"
+                         Text="{Binding Email}" TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"
                          IsVisible="{Binding Email, Converter={x:Static StringConverters.IsNotNullOrEmpty}}" />
 
               <!--
@@ -246,7 +257,7 @@
                 </Grid>
               </Button>
 
-              <Border Height="1" Background="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
+              <Border Height="1" Margin="11,4" Background="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
 
               <!--
                 v5c: Settings, Vaults and Preferences now each land on their own page of the settings mode —
@@ -260,16 +271,23 @@
               <Button Classes="poprow" Click="OnPopoverSettingsPressed">
                 <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
                   <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" Text="&#xE8B8;" FontSize="12"
-                             Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
+                             Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
                   <TextBlock Text="Settings" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
                 </StackPanel>
               </Button>
 
+              <!--
+                ◆ THE SAME TREATMENT AS SETTINGS ABOVE AND LOGOUT BELOW, which these two did not have: their
+                label was TextGhost where the other two rows' was Text, so a menu of five equally live
+                destinations drew two of them in the colour this window uses for something switched off. The
+                icons stay one step quieter than the words — the idiom the nav rail's own rows already follow
+                — but "quieter than the word beside it" and "dimmed" are not the same statement.
+              -->
               <Button Classes="poprow" Click="OnPopoverVaultsPressed">
                 <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
                   <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" Text="&#xE84F;" FontSize="12"
                              Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
-                  <TextBlock Text="Vaults" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
+                  <TextBlock Text="Vaults" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
                 </StackPanel>
               </Button>
 
@@ -277,11 +295,11 @@
                 <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
                   <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" Text="&#xE429;" FontSize="12"
                              Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
-                  <TextBlock Text="Preferences" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
+                  <TextBlock Text="Preferences" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
                 </StackPanel>
               </Button>
 
-              <Border Height="1" Background="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
+              <Border Height="1" Margin="11,4" Background="{StaticResource BorderMid}" />
 
               <!--
                 The existing sign-out flow, with its own confirm card — see
@@ -291,7 +309,7 @@
               <Button Classes="poprow" Click="OnPopoverLogoutPressed">
                 <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
                   <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" Text="&#xE9BA;" FontSize="12"
-                             Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
+                             Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" />
                   <TextBlock Text="Logout" FontSize="10" Foreground="{StaticResource Text}" />
                 </StackPanel>
               </Button>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SessionHeader.axaml

@@ -1,49 +0,0 @@
-<UserControl xmlns="https://github.com/avaloniaui"
-             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
-             xmlns:vm="using:DodoSSH.Client.Shell.ViewModels"
-             x:Class="DodoSSH.Client.App.Views.SessionHeader"
-             x:Name="Root"
-             x:DataType="vm:MainWindowViewModel">
-
-  <!--
-    ── v5b's session shell host header ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-    60px, DeepChrome, atop the pane both the terminal and the SFTP surface hold. Per the design, minus the
-    three deviations design-notes/v5b-fidelity-notes.md records: no OS label, no latency reading, no "Port
-    forward" button — none of those are facts this application has.
-
-    ◆ THE ONE FACT LEFT is the address, read off MainWindowViewModel.SessionAddress — which is already the
-    surface-aware property, so this control asks no question about which screen it is on. What differs
-    between the two usages is only the cross-surface button: <see cref="OpenLabel"/>, <see cref="OpenCommand"/>
-    and the empty-state copy, all handed in from MainWindow.axaml rather than branched on here.
-  -->
-
-  <Border Height="60" Background="{StaticResource DeepChrome}"
-          BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="0,0,0,1">
-    <Grid ColumnDefinitions="*,Auto" Margin="24,0,20,0">
-
-      <!--
-        The address, only while a session/host context is active — see SessionAddress's own remark for what
-        "active" means on each surface. The empty state takes its place otherwise, in the idiom every other
-        screen's own "nothing yet" sentence already uses: TextFaint, sentence case, no punctuation implying a
-        form to fill in.
-      -->
-      <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontWeight="Bold" FontSize="14"
-                 Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}" VerticalAlignment="Center"
-                 Text="{Binding SessionAddress}" ToolTip.Tip="{Binding SessionAddress}"
-                 TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"
-                 IsVisible="{Binding SessionAddress, Converter={x:Static StringConverters.IsNotNullOrEmpty}}" />
-
-      <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Classes="mono" FontSize="12.5"
-                 Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}" VerticalAlignment="Center"
-                 Text="{Binding #Root.EmptyText}" TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"
-                 IsVisible="{Binding SessionAddress, Converter={x:Static StringConverters.IsNullOrEmpty}}" />
-
-      <Button Grid.Column="1" Classes="headerghost"
-              Content="{Binding #Root.OpenLabel}"
-              Command="{Binding #Root.OpenCommand}"
-              CommandParameter="{Binding #Root.OpenCommandParameter}" />
-
-    </Grid>
-  </Border>
-
-</UserControl>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SessionHeader.axaml.cs

@@ -1,58 +0,0 @@
-using System.Windows.Input;
-using Avalonia;
-using Avalonia.Controls;
-
-namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
-
-/// <summary>
-/// The v5b session shell's host header: the address, and a ghost button that crosses to the other surface.
-/// See the remark at the top of SessionHeader.axaml.
-/// </summary>
-internal sealed partial class SessionHeader : UserControl
-{
-    /// <summary>What the cross-surface ghost button says — "Open SFTP" or "Open terminal".</summary>
-    internal static readonly StyledProperty<string?> OpenLabelProperty =
-        AvaloniaProperty.Register<SessionHeader, string?>(nameof(OpenLabel));
-
-    /// <summary>What the cross-surface ghost button runs.</summary>
-    /// <remarks>
-    /// The terminal usage binds <c>SelectFilesHostCommand</c> with the selected tab as its parameter; the
-    /// SFTP usage binds <c>OpenTerminalForFilesHostCommand</c>, which needs none — see the remark on both in
-    /// <c>MainWindowViewModel</c> for why the two directions are not symmetrical.
-    /// </remarks>
-    internal static readonly StyledProperty<ICommand?> OpenCommandProperty =
-        AvaloniaProperty.Register<SessionHeader, ICommand?>(nameof(OpenCommand));
-
-    internal static readonly StyledProperty<object?> OpenCommandParameterProperty =
-        AvaloniaProperty.Register<SessionHeader, object?>(nameof(OpenCommandParameter));
-
-    /// <summary>What the header says instead of an address, while no session/host context is active.</summary>
-    internal static readonly StyledProperty<string?> EmptyTextProperty =
-        AvaloniaProperty.Register<SessionHeader, string?>(nameof(EmptyText));
-
-    public SessionHeader() => InitializeComponent();
-
-    internal string? OpenLabel
-    {
-        get => GetValue(OpenLabelProperty);
-        set => SetValue(OpenLabelProperty, value);
-    }
-
-    internal ICommand? OpenCommand
-    {
-        get => GetValue(OpenCommandProperty);
-        set => SetValue(OpenCommandProperty, value);
-    }
-
-    internal object? OpenCommandParameter
-    {
-        get => GetValue(OpenCommandParameterProperty);
-        set => SetValue(OpenCommandParameterProperty, value);
-    }
-
-    internal string? EmptyText
-    {
-        get => GetValue(EmptyTextProperty);
-        set => SetValue(EmptyTextProperty, value);
-    }
-}

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SessionSidebar.axaml

@@ -19,70 +19,100 @@
     Every row here is a command the shell already exposes for exactly this purpose — see
     MainWindowViewModel.PinFolderFromSidebarCommand, AddSnippetFromSidebarCommand and InsertSnippetCommand —
     so this control carries no logic of its own beyond the list it draws and the click it forwards.
+
+    ── v5c-4: THE SESSION BLOCK AT THE HEAD, AND THE HEADER ROW THAT IS GONE ─────────────────────────────────
+    The 60-pixel host header that used to sit above the pane on both surfaces has been retired, and its two
+    contents moved up here: the address it printed, and the cross-surface button — "Open SFTP" from a
+    terminal, "Open terminal" from SFTP. Which of the two words it is and which command it runs are resolved
+    by the shell now rather than handed in from the two usage sites; see
+    MainWindowViewModel.SessionCrossSurfaceLabel and OpenOtherSurfaceCommand. The pane keeps that height.
+
+    The address is the fact the header row existed for, so it moves rather than disappears. It sits where the
+    QUICK ACCESS heading used to print the selected tab's short label — that label said less than the address
+    does and would be the same word twice beside it.
+
+    ── AND THE COLUMN CLOSES ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+    300 pixels is a lot of a 1180-pixel window to give a list that is often two rows long, so the column
+    folds to a 34-pixel rail carrying the way back. A rail rather than nothing: a panel that vanishes without
+    trace is one people report as lost. Both halves live in this control and swap on
+    MainWindowViewModel.IsSessionSidebarOpen, so MainWindow.axaml's own "Auto" column takes whichever width
+    is showing without knowing anything about the state — and the pane beside it grows into what is freed.
   -->
 
-  <Border Width="300" Background="{StaticResource Sidebar}"
-          BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="1,0,0,0">
-    <ScrollViewer VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
-      <StackPanel Spacing="6" Margin="16,20">
+  <Panel>
 
-        <!-- ============ QUICK ACCESS ============ -->
-        <Grid ColumnDefinitions="*,Auto" Margin="8,0">
-          <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Classes="label" Text="QUICK ACCESS" FontSize="10" />
-          <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Classes="mono" FontSize="10"
-                     Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}"
-                     Text="{Binding SelectedTab.Label}" TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis" MaxWidth="130" />
-        </Grid>
+    <!-- ============ THE RAIL, WHEN THE COLUMN IS CLOSED ============ -->
+    <!--
+      Painted and bordered like the open column so the closing reads as the same surface narrowing rather
+      than as one piece of furniture being swapped for another.
+    -->
+    <Border Width="34" Background="{StaticResource Sidebar}"
+            BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="1,0,0,0"
+            IsVisible="{Binding !IsSessionSidebarOpen}">
+      <Button Classes="flat sidebargrip" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="0,20,0,0"
+              Command="{Binding ToggleSessionSidebarCommand}"
+              ToolTip.Tip="Show quick access, snips and the way across to the other surface">
+        <TextBlock Text="&#xE5CB;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="18"
+                   Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}"
+                   HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+      </Button>
+    </Border>
 
-        <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding ActiveTabPinnedPaths}">
-          <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
-            <DataTemplate x:DataType="x:String">
-              <!--
-                A single level of $parent[ItemsControl] reaches the shell directly, the same way the old pin
-                strip's chips did: this ItemsControl's own DataContext is MainWindowViewModel, so one hop up
-                from the path's string DataContext lands on it.
-              -->
-              <Button Classes="sidebarrow"
-                      Command="{Binding $parent[ItemsControl].((vm:MainWindowViewModel)DataContext).OpenPinnedPathCommand}"
-                      CommandParameter="{Binding}"
-                      ToolTip.Tip="{Binding}">
-                <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
-                  <TextBlock Text="&#xE2C7;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="15"
-                             Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-                  <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontSize="12.5" Text="{Binding}"
-                             TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-                </StackPanel>
-              </Button>
-            </DataTemplate>
-          </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
-        </ItemsControl>
+    <!-- ============ THE COLUMN ============ -->
+    <Border Width="300" Background="{StaticResource Sidebar}"
+            BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}" BorderThickness="1,0,0,0"
+            IsVisible="{Binding IsSessionSidebarOpen}">
+      <ScrollViewer VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
+        <StackPanel Spacing="6" Margin="16,20">
 
-        <Button Classes="sidebaradd" Command="{Binding PinFolderFromSidebarCommand}"
-                ToolTip.Tip="Opens the active tab's host for editing, at QUICK ACCESS.">
-          <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
-            <TextBlock Text="&#xE145;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="14"
-                       VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-            <TextBlock Text="Pin folder" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-          </StackPanel>
-        </Button>
+          <!-- ============ THE SESSION ============ -->
+          <!--
+            The address, and the button that closes the column. Both on one row, and the address is the
+            trimming one: a long account@host:port is exactly the string that would otherwise push the
+            close button off the edge of a panel whose whole point is that it can be got rid of.
+          -->
+          <Grid ColumnDefinitions="*,Auto" Margin="8,0,0,0">
+            <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontWeight="Bold"
+                       FontSize="12.5" Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}"
+                       VerticalAlignment="Center" TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"
+                       Text="{Binding SessionAddress}" ToolTip.Tip="{Binding SessionAddress}" />
+            <Button Grid.Column="1" Classes="flat sidebargrip"
+                    Command="{Binding ToggleSessionSidebarCommand}"
+                    ToolTip.Tip="Close this column. The terminal takes the width, and the rail it leaves behind brings it back.">
+              <TextBlock Text="&#xE5CC;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="18"
+                         Foreground="{StaticResource TextFaint}"
+                         HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+            </Button>
+          </Grid>
 
-        <!-- ============ SNIPS (the terminal surface only) ============ -->
-        <StackPanel Spacing="6" Margin="0,16,0,0" IsVisible="{Binding #Root.ShowsSnips}">
+          <!--
+            The cross-surface button, stretched across the column rather than sized to its own caption: it
+            is the one action in this panel that is not a list row, and a 90-pixel button floating at the
+            left of a 300-pixel column would read as unfinished.
+          -->
+          <Button Classes="headerghost" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="0,4,0,10"
+                  Content="{Binding SessionCrossSurfaceLabel}"
+                  Command="{Binding OpenOtherSurfaceCommand}" />
 
-          <TextBlock Classes="label" Text="SNIPS" FontSize="10" Margin="8,0" />
+          <!-- ============ QUICK ACCESS ============ -->
+          <TextBlock Classes="label" Text="QUICK ACCESS" FontSize="10" Margin="8,0" />
 
-          <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SnippetsScreen.Visible}">
+          <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding ActiveTabPinnedPaths}">
             <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
-              <DataTemplate x:DataType="vm:SnippetRowViewModel">
+              <DataTemplate x:DataType="x:String">
+                <!--
+                  A single level of $parent[ItemsControl] reaches the shell directly, the same way the old pin
+                  strip's chips did: this ItemsControl's own DataContext is MainWindowViewModel, so one hop up
+                  from the path's string DataContext lands on it.
+                -->
                 <Button Classes="sidebarrow"
-                        Command="{Binding $parent[ItemsControl].((vm:MainWindowViewModel)DataContext).InsertSnippetCommand}"
+                        Command="{Binding $parent[ItemsControl].((vm:MainWindowViewModel)DataContext).OpenPinnedPathCommand}"
                         CommandParameter="{Binding}"
-                        ToolTip.Tip="{Binding Snippet.Command}">
+                        ToolTip.Tip="{Binding}">
                   <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
-                    <TextBlock Text="{}{ }" FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontWeight="Bold"
-                               FontSize="11" Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}"
-                               VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-                    <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontSize="12.5" Text="{Binding Label}"
+                    <TextBlock Text="&#xE2C7;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="15"
+                               Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+                    <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontSize="12.5" Text="{Binding}"
                                TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                   </StackPanel>
                 </Button>
@@ -90,19 +120,54 @@
             </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
           </ItemsControl>
 
-          <Button Classes="sidebaradd" Command="{Binding AddSnippetFromSidebarCommand}"
-                  ToolTip.Tip="Opens the snippet editor.">
+          <Button Classes="sidebaradd" Command="{Binding PinFolderFromSidebarCommand}"
+                  ToolTip.Tip="Opens the active tab's host for editing, at QUICK ACCESS.">
             <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
               <TextBlock Text="&#xE145;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="14"
                          VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-              <TextBlock Text="Add Snip" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+              <TextBlock Text="Pin folder" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
             </StackPanel>
           </Button>
 
-        </StackPanel>
+          <!-- ============ SNIPS (the terminal surface only) ============ -->
+          <StackPanel Spacing="6" Margin="0,16,0,0" IsVisible="{Binding #Root.ShowsSnips}">
 
-      </StackPanel>
-    </ScrollViewer>
-  </Border>
+            <TextBlock Classes="label" Text="SNIPS" FontSize="10" Margin="8,0" />
+
+            <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SnippetsScreen.Visible}">
+              <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+                <DataTemplate x:DataType="vm:SnippetRowViewModel">
+                  <Button Classes="sidebarrow"
+                          Command="{Binding $parent[ItemsControl].((vm:MainWindowViewModel)DataContext).InsertSnippetCommand}"
+                          CommandParameter="{Binding}"
+                          ToolTip.Tip="{Binding Snippet.Command}">
+                    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
+                      <TextBlock Text="{}{ }" FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontWeight="Bold"
+                                 FontSize="11" Foreground="{StaticResource AccentText}"
+                                 VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+                      <TextBlock FontFamily="{StaticResource MonoFont}" FontSize="12.5" Text="{Binding Label}"
+                                 TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+                    </StackPanel>
+                  </Button>
+                </DataTemplate>
+              </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
+            </ItemsControl>
+
+            <Button Classes="sidebaradd" Command="{Binding AddSnippetFromSidebarCommand}"
+                    ToolTip.Tip="Opens the snippet editor.">
+              <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="10">
+                <TextBlock Text="&#xE145;" FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}" FontSize="14"
+                           VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+                <TextBlock Text="Add Snip" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
+              </StackPanel>
+            </Button>
+
+          </StackPanel>
+
+        </StackPanel>
+      </ScrollViewer>
+    </Border>
+
+  </Panel>
 
 </UserControl>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SessionTabRow.axaml

@@ -60,12 +60,23 @@
                       ToolTip.Tip="{Binding Address}">
                 <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Spacing="9" VerticalAlignment="Center">
                   <!--
-                    Two states, as the strip's own dots always were: green while the shell behind this tab is
-                    running, grey while it is connecting and once it has ended. The design's third, amber,
-                    state has no meaning here — nothing in this application checks whether a host is merely
-                    reachable — so it is not drawn; see design-notes/v5b-fidelity-notes.md.
+                    Three states now, where there were two. Green while the shell behind this tab is running
+                    and grey once it has ended, as the strip's dots always were — and amber while it is
+                    connecting, which used to be grey as well.
+
+                    The design's amber had no meaning here while nothing in this application knew how far a
+                    connection had got; that changed with the step list, and the note this comment used to
+                    carry — that amber is for a host merely reachable, so it is not drawn — is answered
+                    rather than ignored. It is not being reachable that is amber, it is being underway. See
+                    ConnectingCard.axaml, whose track and running step are the same colour for the same
+                    reason, and design-notes/v5b-fidelity-notes.md for the state this is not.
+
+                    Worth the third colour because the two it replaces were the same one: a tab still
+                    dialling and a tab whose shell has exited both drew grey, which are the two states in
+                    this strip with the least in common — one is worth waiting for and the other is over.
                   -->
                   <Ellipse Classes="dot" Width="8" Height="8" Classes.live="{Binding IsLive}"
+                           Classes.connecting="{Binding IsConnecting}"
                            VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                   <TextBlock Text="{Binding Label}" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
 

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SettingsTitleBar.axaml

@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@
     the same 53px bar: "Back to application" on the left, in place of the wordmark and the search box, and
     the same three window-control glyphs on the right TitleBar.axaml already draws.
 
-    A separate control rather than a variant of TitleBar itself, on the same reasoning SessionHeader and
-    SessionStatusBar are their own files: nothing here can be measured by a test that hosts the real window,
+    A separate control rather than a variant of TitleBar itself, on the same reasoning SessionStatusBar and
+    SessionSidebar are their own files: nothing here can be measured by a test that hosts the real window,
     and a control that is either "the wordmark bar" or "the settings bar" depending on a bound flag would be
     two controls wearing one name. The dragging, maximising and closing logic is duplicated from TitleBar's
     own code-behind rather than shared through a base class — four short handlers, and the day one of the two

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TitleBar.axaml

@@ -79,8 +79,16 @@
             -->
             <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Text="Search or connect…" FontSize="13.5" Margin="10,0"
                        Foreground="{StaticResource TextGhost}" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
-            <!-- CTRL K, not the design's ⌘K — see the remark at the top of this file. -->
-            <Border Grid.Column="2" Width="34" Height="18" CornerRadius="5"
+            <!--
+              CTRL K, not the design's ⌘K — see the remark at the top of this file.
+
+              ◆ PADDED RATHER THAN 34 WIDE, which is the design's own width for a chip reading ⌘K: two
+              glyphs, where the substitution this bar makes is six characters and a space. At 10.5 mono
+              that run is wider than 34, so the chip clipped it — "CTRL" with the K cut in half. MinWidth
+              keeps the design's footprint for the day this face has a ⌘ to draw, and the padding is what
+              the longer label actually needs.
+            -->
+            <Border Grid.Column="2" MinWidth="34" Height="18" CornerRadius="5" Padding="7,0"
                     Background="{StaticResource KbdChip}"
                     HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center">
               <TextBlock Classes="mono" Text="CTRL K" FontSize="10.5" FontWeight="Medium"

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/TransfersScreen.axaml

@@ -382,8 +382,9 @@
         <!--
           ◆ WHAT IS OPEN, AND WHAT CLOSES IT. Only while something is.
 
-          v5b drops the account-at-host chip this row used to carry beside DISCONNECT: SessionHeader now
-          prints the very same address above this whole screen — see MainWindowViewModel.SessionAddress,
+          v5b drops the account-at-host chip this row used to carry beside DISCONNECT: the session shell
+          prints the very same address beside this screen — in the sidebar's own session block since v5c-4
+          retired the header row that printed it above — see MainWindowViewModel.SessionAddress,
           which already reads Transfers.ConnectedTo on the SFTP surface — and repeating it here stopped being
           information and started being the thing squeezing DISCONNECT off the edge. At the session shell's
           own narrower budget this pane is 204 pixels wide once QUICK ACCESS is showing beside it, where the

src/DodoSSH.Client.Session/ClientSettings.cs

@@ -23,9 +23,13 @@ namespace DodoSSH.Client.Session;
 /// <param name="AutomaticUpdateChecks">
 /// Whether this machine looks for a newer build on its own. See the remarks on the property.
 /// </param>
+/// <param name="SessionSidebarOpen">
+/// Whether the session shell's QUICK ACCESS sidebar is drawn. See the remarks on the property.
+/// </param>
 public sealed record ClientSettings(
     int TerminalFontSize = ClientSettings.DefaultTerminalFontSize,
-    bool AutomaticUpdateChecks = true)
+    bool AutomaticUpdateChecks = true,
+    bool SessionSidebarOpen = true)
 {
     /*
       A positional record, and the defaults live on the parameters rather than on property initializers.
@@ -102,6 +106,24 @@ public sealed record ClientSettings(
       warns against.
     */
 
+    /*
+      SessionSidebarOpen: why closing the sidebar is remembered, and why it is remembered here.
+
+      On by default, because the sidebar is where a session's pins, its snips and the way across to the
+      other surface live — a first launch that hid all three would be hiding the feature rather than
+      offering to.
+
+      Remembered at all because closing it is a choice about how much of a 1180-pixel window a terminal
+      gets, and a choice that has to be made again on every launch is one the application is not really
+      offering. It belongs in this file rather than in the vault for the same reason the font size does:
+      it is a fact about this screen, not about this keychain, and following somebody from a 27-inch
+      monitor onto a laptop would be a preference nobody asked for.
+
+      Not per-surface and not per-tab. The sidebar is one control drawn on two screens — see
+      SessionSidebar.axaml — and a window where it is open on SFTP and closed on the terminal is a
+      window that appears to lose it at random.
+    */
+
     /// <summary>Brings a value inside the range this type will store.</summary>
     public static int ClampTerminalFontSize(int pixels) =>
         Math.Clamp(pixels, MinimumTerminalFontSize, MaximumTerminalFontSize);

src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/MainWindowViewModel.cs

@@ -328,6 +328,9 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
     /// </remarks>
     private readonly Func<string, Task>? copyToClipboard;
 
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="MainWindowViewModel(ClientPaths, ClientCacheFactory, TerminalWorkspace, VaultKnownHostStore, IDeviceKeyStore, SignInHandler, TimeProvider, ISftpSessionFactory, Argon2Profile?, ResumeHandler?, Func{string, Task}?, string?, IUpdateChannel?, Action{Action}?)" path="/param[@name='post']" />
+    private readonly Action<Action> post;
+
     /// <remarks>
     /// Created once and kept for the life of the process, like <see cref="workspace"/> and for the same
     /// reason: file transfer opens its own authenticated connection, and locking the vault must not destroy
@@ -470,6 +473,19 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
     /// absence of a line rather than by a line somebody has to remember to keep a no-op; and ADR 0011 settles
     /// the Android head's distribution separately, so it must never acquire one by accident.
     /// </param>
+    /// <param name="post">
+    /// Runs an action on the thread this shell's view models are read from. Defaults to the UI thread's
+    /// dispatcher, which is the answer in every real head.
+    /// <para>
+    /// A delegate rather than <c>Dispatcher.UIThread</c> reached directly, for exactly the reason
+    /// <c>TransfersViewModel</c>'s is one — see the remark there. It is process-wide and belongs to whichever
+    /// thread touched it first, so a suite that runs with no window has no way to drain it and no way to
+    /// know whose it is. This one exists because connection phases are reported from the handshake's own
+    /// thread, which is the first thing in this class that has to cross onto the UI thread and also has to
+    /// be assertable: the three <c>Dispatcher.UIThread.Post</c> calls that predate it are the ones this
+    /// suite's own comments record as out of reach, and they are left alone rather than swept in here.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </param>
     internal MainWindowViewModel(
         ClientPaths paths,
         ClientCacheFactory caches,
@@ -483,8 +499,11 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         ResumeHandler? resume = null,
         Func<string, Task>? copyToClipboard = null,
         string? deviceName = null,
-        IUpdateChannel? updates = null)
+        IUpdateChannel? updates = null,
+        Action<Action>? post = null)
     {
+        this.post = post ?? (action => Dispatcher.UIThread.Post(action));
+
         this.paths = paths;
         this.caches = caches;
         this.workspace = workspace;
@@ -531,16 +550,30 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
 
         updateScreen = CreateUpdateScreen(updates);
 
-        // Read straight away rather than at first use, so the value is right before anything can read it —
-        // a phone draws its terminal buttons from this, and a size that arrived a moment later would show
-        // as the interface correcting itself.
-        TerminalFontSize = ClientSettings.ClampTerminalFontSize(settings.Read().TerminalFontSize);
+        ApplyStoredPreferences();
 
         _ = TellRendererTheFontSizeAsync();
 
         StartSessionShellTracking();
     }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Takes this machine's own preferences off disk, before anything can read them.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Read straight away rather than at first use, and both of them for the same reason: whatever is stored
+    /// is what the first window draws. A phone builds its terminal's font buttons from the size, and the
+    /// session shell decides whether to give a sidebar 300 pixels — either arriving a moment later shows as
+    /// the interface correcting itself in front of the user.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private void ApplyStoredPreferences()
+    {
+        var stored = settings.Read();
+
+        TerminalFontSize = ClientSettings.ClampTerminalFontSize(stored.TerminalFontSize);
+        IsSessionSidebarOpen = stored.SessionSidebarOpen;
+    }
+
     /// <summary>
     /// Wires up the two pieces of v5b's session shell that this constructor had no room left to inline.
     /// </summary>
@@ -984,6 +1017,20 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
     /// </remarks>
     internal event EventHandler? TerminalSessionOpened;
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Raised when something this shell did belongs in the terminal the user is already looking at, so the
+    /// view can put the keyboard back there.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Separate from <see cref="TerminalSessionOpened"/> because no session opened: the sidebar's SNIPS row
+    /// typed into one that was already running, and the click that did it moved Win32 focus onto an Avalonia
+    /// button. The page cannot fix that from its side — see the <c>term.focus()</c> at the end of
+    /// <c>terminal.js</c>'s paste handler, which only ever reaches <c>document.activeElement</c> — so the
+    /// half that can only be done by the host is asked for here. The view re-checks that a terminal is
+    /// actually showing before it acts; see <c>MainWindow.FocusTerminalWhenLaidOut</c>.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal event EventHandler? TerminalFocusRequested;
+
     internal bool IsStarting => State == ShellState.Starting;
 
     internal bool IsNeedingServer => State == ShellState.NeedsServer;
@@ -3243,7 +3290,7 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
             oldValue.PropertyChanged -= OnVaultPropertyChanged;
             oldValue.Hosts.CollectionChanged -= OnVaultHostsChanged;
 
-            // The three connection events are kept while an attempt is still in flight, and that is not an
+            // The four connection events are kept while an attempt is still in flight, and that is not an
             // oversight. Locking does not end a handshake any more than it ends a shell — the workspace is
             // what holds both, and it outlives every vault — so a connection started just before a lock still
             // has an answer coming, and the tab standing in for it is still in the strip afterwards, because
@@ -3257,6 +3304,7 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
             if (attempts.Count == 0)
             {
                 oldValue.ConnectionStarting -= OnVaultConnectionStarting;
+                oldValue.ConnectionProgress -= OnVaultConnectionProgress;
                 oldValue.ConnectionFailed -= OnVaultConnectionFailed;
                 oldValue.SessionOpened -= OnVaultSessionOpened;
             }
@@ -3265,6 +3313,7 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         if (newValue is not null)
         {
             newValue.ConnectionStarting += OnVaultConnectionStarting;
+            newValue.ConnectionProgress += OnVaultConnectionProgress;
             newValue.ConnectionFailed += OnVaultConnectionFailed;
             newValue.SessionOpened += OnVaultSessionOpened;
             newValue.PropertyChanged += OnVaultPropertyChanged;
@@ -3406,6 +3455,41 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         AdoptTab(tab);
     }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Moves a connecting tab's step list on, from the handshake's own report.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The one place the phases raised by <c>VaultViewModel.ConnectionProgress</c> are marshalled, and the
+    /// reason that event does not marshal for itself: doing it here means it happens once, visibly, at the
+    /// only boundary that cares — everything this touches is a view model an Avalonia binding is attached to.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Posted unconditionally rather than applied inline when it looks safe. Some phases really do arrive
+    /// on this thread — the first is reported before the handshake has yielded at all — and a
+    /// <c>CheckAccess</c> fast path for them would buy one dispatcher turn on a card that is up for seconds,
+    /// at the price of the two orderings existing at once and only one of them being the one a test runs.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// A step that arrives after the attempt has settled is harmless and needs no guard here:
+    /// <see cref="TerminalTabViewModel.Advance"/> ignores anything reported to a tab that is no longer
+    /// connecting, which is what a posted phase landing behind its own <see cref="OnVaultSessionOpened"/>
+    /// looks like.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// A report for an attempt with no tab is dropped, exactly as the other two handlers drop one: the user
+    /// closed the connecting tab and there is nothing left to draw a step on. The handshake is not affected
+    /// and its session is still adopted if it opens.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private void OnVaultConnectionProgress(object? sender, ConnectionProgressEventArgs e) => post(() =>
+    {
+        if (attempts.TryGetValue(e.AttemptId, out var tab))
+        {
+            tab.Advance(e.Step);
+        }
+    });
+
     /// <summary>
     /// Redraws the vault menu after a synchronisation pass found a vault this account had not seen.
     /// </summary>
@@ -3768,6 +3852,72 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         (IsTerminalSurface && SelectedTab is not null)
         || (IsTransfersShowing && Transfers.IsConnected);
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Whether the sidebar is drawn in full, as opposed to collapsed to the rail that brings it back.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// A separate question from <see cref="ShowsQuickAccessSidebar"/>, and the two are not interchangeable:
+    /// that one is "is there a session for this to be about", which the shell answers, and this one is "does
+    /// the person want to see it", which only they can. Closed still draws something — a 34-pixel rail with
+    /// the way back on it; see <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c> — because a panel that vanishes with no trace of
+    /// how to get it back is one people report as lost rather than as closed. Remembered between launches;
+    /// see <see cref="ToggleSessionSidebar"/> and <c>ClientSettings.SessionSidebarOpen</c>.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [ObservableProperty]
+    private bool isSessionSidebarOpen = true;
+
+    /// <summary>Opens the session sidebar, or closes it to its rail.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Written through on every toggle rather than on shutdown: this shell is disposed on paths that do not
+    /// all run to completion — a killed process, a phone's activity going away — and a preference that
+    /// survives only a clean exit is one that will sometimes be forgotten for no reason the user can see.
+    /// The store swallows its own failures and says whether it wrote; nothing here can do anything useful
+    /// with the answer, so the toggle stands whether or not the disk took it.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [RelayCommand]
+    private void ToggleSessionSidebar()
+    {
+        IsSessionSidebarOpen = !IsSessionSidebarOpen;
+
+        _ = settings.Write(settings.Read() with { SessionSidebarOpen = IsSessionSidebarOpen });
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// The label on the sidebar's cross-surface row: where the other half of this host is.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// v5c-4 moved this button off the session shell's own 60-pixel header row and into the sidebar, and the
+    /// header went with it — see <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c>. What the two surfaces hand in separately used
+    /// to be a pair of properties on the header control; it is resolved here now, for the same reason
+    /// <see cref="SessionAddress"/> is: the sidebar is one control drawn on both surfaces, and a view that
+    /// branched on which one it was would be asking a question the shell has already answered.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal string SessionCrossSurfaceLabel => IsTerminalSurface ? "Open SFTP" : "Open terminal";
+
+    /// <summary>Goes to the other half of the session the sidebar is about.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The two directions were two commands bound from two usages of the header control, and they still are
+    /// two methods — <see cref="SelectFilesHostAsync"/> takes a tab and opens an SFTP connection to its host;
+    /// <see cref="OpenTerminalForFilesHostAsync"/> dials a fresh terminal at whatever SFTP has open, because
+    /// there is no terminal session to reuse. What is new is only that one control now asks for both, so the
+    /// branch lives here beside <see cref="SessionCrossSurfaceLabel"/>, which has to agree with it.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [RelayCommand]
+    private async Task OpenOtherSurfaceAsync()
+    {
+        if (IsTerminalSurface)
+        {
+            if (SelectedTab is { } tab)
+            {
+                await SelectFilesHostAsync(tab).ConfigureAwait(true);
+            }
+
+            return;
+        }
+
+        await OpenTerminalForFilesHostAsync().ConfigureAwait(true);
+    }
+
     /// <summary>
     /// Opens the files screen on the active tab's host and navigates its remote pane to one of its pins.
     /// </summary>
@@ -3840,6 +3990,12 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         if (screen.CanInsert)
         {
             await screen.InsertCommand.ExecuteAsync(null).ConfigureAwait(true);
+
+            // The click that got here took the keyboard off the terminal and gave it to the sidebar row, so
+            // the command lands at a prompt that cannot be typed at until somebody clicks the pane. Asked
+            // for after the insert rather than before it, so the caret arrives to find the text already
+            // there. See TerminalFocusRequested.
+            TerminalFocusRequested?.Invoke(this, EventArgs.Empty);
             return;
         }
 
@@ -3933,14 +4089,15 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
     }
 
     /// <summary>
-    /// The account and endpoint the session shell's header and status bar are about right now, or null when
+    /// The account and endpoint the session shell's sidebar and status bar are about right now, or null when
     /// neither surface has one.
     /// </summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// One property reading whichever surface is showing, rather than one binding per surface reading its own
-    /// source directly — <c>SessionHeader.axaml</c> and <c>SessionStatusBar.axaml</c> are the same markup on
+    /// source directly — <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c> and <c>SessionStatusBar.axaml</c> are the same markup on
     /// both surfaces precisely because the shell resolves "which fact source" here instead of asking the view
-    /// to. The terminal's is <see cref="SelectedTab"/>'s own address; SFTP's is <see cref="TransfersViewModel.ConnectedTo"/>,
+    /// to. It was the retired header row that printed this first; v5c-4 moved the line into the sidebar's own
+    /// session block and left this property exactly as it was. The terminal's is <see cref="SelectedTab"/>'s own address; SFTP's is <see cref="TransfersViewModel.ConnectedTo"/>,
     /// which is already the account and endpoint actually dialled — nothing here re-derives it.
     /// </remarks>
     internal string? SessionAddress => Surface switch
@@ -4085,6 +4242,10 @@ internal sealed partial class MainWindowViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisp
         OnPropertyChanged(nameof(SessionIdentityLabel));
         OnPropertyChanged(nameof(SessionIdentityText));
         OnPropertyChanged(nameof(ShowsQuickAccessSidebar));
+
+        // v5c-4: the sidebar's cross-surface row says where the other half of this session is, so it turns
+        // over with the surface exactly as the facts above do.
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(SessionCrossSurfaceLabel));
     }
 
     /// <remarks>

src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/TerminalTabViewModel.cs

@@ -1,7 +1,129 @@
 using CommunityToolkit.Mvvm.ComponentModel;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Ssh;
 
 namespace DodoSSH.Client.Shell.ViewModels;
 
+/// <summary>
+/// One named part of making a connection, in the order they happen.
+/// </summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <para>
+/// <see cref="SshConnectionPhase"/> with one more at the front. The SSH assembly reports four phases and
+/// knows about no others, which is correct for it — it has never heard of a renderer. But the first thing a
+/// connection here waits on is the terminal page attaching its socket, and on the first connection after a
+/// cold start that is a real wait with a real failure mode of its own: a missing WebView2 runtime. A step
+/// list that began at "reaching the host" would leave the one wait most likely to hang unnamed.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// Declared here rather than shared with the SSH layer for that reason, and the mapping between the two is
+/// one <c>switch</c> in <c>VaultViewModel</c>. The numbering is the order and the order is load-bearing:
+/// <see cref="TerminalTabViewModel.Advance"/> compares these values to decide what is already behind it.
+/// </para>
+/// </remarks>
+internal enum ConnectionStep
+{
+    /// <summary>Waiting for the renderer to attach, before anything is dialled.</summary>
+    PreparingTerminal = 0,
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="SshConnectionPhase.Reaching" />
+    Reaching = 1,
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey" />
+    CheckingHostKey = 2,
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating" />
+    Authenticating = 3,
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell" />
+    OpeningShell = 4,
+}
+
+/// <summary>How one step of a connection is getting on.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// Four states rather than a bool per row, because a step list is read as a sequence and the reader's
+/// question at each row is which of the four this is: behind us, happening, not yet, or where it stopped.
+/// <see cref="Stopped"/> exists only for the row a failure landed on — see
+/// <see cref="TerminalTabViewModel.Failed"/> — and is what turns the list from a progress bar into an
+/// account of how far the attempt got.
+/// </remarks>
+internal enum ConnectionStepState
+{
+    /// <summary>Not started. Nothing is known about it yet.</summary>
+    Pending = 0,
+
+    /// <summary>Happening now.</summary>
+    Running = 1,
+
+    /// <summary>Finished, because something after it started.</summary>
+    Done = 2,
+
+    /// <summary>Where the attempt stopped. There is no step after this one.</summary>
+    Stopped = 3,
+}
+
+/// <summary>One row of the connecting card's step list.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// A view model per step rather than an index the view compares against, because each row draws its own
+/// state and an <c>ItemsControl</c> has no way to ask "am I before the current one?" — the alternative was a
+/// converter taking two bindings, which is the same comparison written somewhere it cannot be tested.
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed partial class ConnectionStepViewModel : ObservableObject
+{
+    internal ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep step, string caption)
+    {
+        Step = step;
+        Caption = caption;
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>Which step this is.</summary>
+    internal ConnectionStep Step { get; }
+
+    /// <summary>What the row says, in the present tense of the thing being waited on.</summary>
+    internal string Caption { get; }
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="ConnectionStepState" />
+    [ObservableProperty]
+    private ConnectionStepState state;
+
+    /// <summary>Whether this step is the one happening now.</summary>
+    internal bool IsRunning => State is ConnectionStepState.Running;
+
+    /// <summary>Whether this step finished.</summary>
+    internal bool IsDone => State is ConnectionStepState.Done;
+
+    /// <summary>Whether the attempt stopped on this step.</summary>
+    internal bool IsStopped => State is ConnectionStepState.Stopped;
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// The character drawn beside the caption for whichever state this is in.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Here rather than in a converter for the reason <c>TransferRowViewModel.StatusWord</c> is: the mapping
+    /// is four cases with no arithmetic, and a converter would put it in a file the shell's tests cannot
+    /// reach. The colours stay in the view, where the palette is.
+    /// <para>
+    /// Four distinguishable shapes rather than one recoloured, because the difference between a step that
+    /// finished and a step still running has to survive somebody who cannot tell this design's green from
+    /// its amber.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal string Mark => State switch
+    {
+        ConnectionStepState.Done => "✓",
+        ConnectionStepState.Running => "●",
+        ConnectionStepState.Stopped => "✕",
+        _ => "○",
+    };
+
+    partial void OnStateChanged(ConnectionStepState value)
+    {
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(IsRunning));
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(IsDone));
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(IsStopped));
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(Mark));
+    }
+}
+
 /// <summary>
 /// How far along a tab's connection is.
 /// </summary>
@@ -57,8 +179,23 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
     {
         Label = label;
         Address = address;
-        status = "connecting…";
         isLive = false;
+
+        Steps =
+        [
+            new ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep.PreparingTerminal, "Starting the terminal"),
+            new ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep.Reaching, "Reaching the host"),
+            new ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep.CheckingHostKey, "Checking the host key"),
+            new ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep.Authenticating, "Signing in"),
+            new ConnectionStepViewModel(ConnectionStep.OpeningShell, "Opening the shell"),
+        ];
+
+        // The first step is running before anything is awaited, because it is: the tab is created in the
+        // same turn as the click and the renderer wait starts immediately after. A list that opened with
+        // every row pending would show a connection that had not begun, which is one turn of the dispatcher
+        // away from being untrue and is the turn the card is first drawn in.
+        status = Steps[0].Caption;
+        Steps[0].State = ConnectionStepState.Running;
     }
 
     /// <summary>A tab for a session that is already open.</summary>
@@ -72,6 +209,12 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
         state = TerminalTabState.Open;
         status = string.Empty;
         isLive = true;
+
+        // A session that already exists got through every step by definition, even though this tab watched
+        // none of them happen — an adopted session is one whose connecting tab the user closed. The list is
+        // never drawn for a tab in this state; it is filled in so that nothing downstream has to treat "open"
+        // as a fourth answer to "how far did it get".
+        CompleteSteps();
     }
 
     /// <summary>
@@ -128,6 +271,36 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
     /// </remarks>
     internal string? IdentityLabel { get; set; }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// How far this connection got, step by step, for the card that stands in for the pane.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Fixed at construction and never added to or removed from — the steps of a connection are known before
+    /// it starts, and only their state changes — so a plain array is enough and the view needs no collection
+    /// change notification for it.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>Every row here is reported, not guessed.</b> The states come from
+    /// <see cref="SshConnectionPhase"/>, raised by the handshake itself at the moment each part of it begins.
+    /// Nothing on this list is a timer, a fraction, or a step this view model decided had probably finished
+    /// by now. That is the whole reason it is worth showing: a card that invented plausible progress would be
+    /// indistinguishable from one that had stopped receiving any.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal IReadOnlyList<ConnectionStepViewModel> Steps { get; }
+
+    /// <summary>How many steps are behind the attempt, for the card's track.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Counted rather than stored, and it counts <see cref="ConnectionStepState.Done"/> alone: the running
+    /// step is deliberately not half a step. The track fills to where the attempt has actually got to and
+    /// stops there, which is the same promise the list itself makes.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal int StepsDone => Steps.Count(step => step.IsDone);
+
+    /// <summary>How many steps there are, for the card's track.</summary>
+    internal int StepCount => Steps.Count;
+
     /// <inheritdoc cref="TerminalTabState" />
     [ObservableProperty]
     private TerminalTabState state;
@@ -187,6 +360,54 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
     /// <summary>Whether this tab is a connection that never happened.</summary>
     internal bool IsFailed => State is TerminalTabState.Failed;
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Records that the connection has reached a named step.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Everything before <paramref name="step"/> is marked done, because a phase that has begun is proof the
+    /// ones before it ended — the handshake is a sequence and there is no way to be at one point in it
+    /// without having passed the earlier ones. That is also what covers a step too fast to observe: it is
+    /// closed by its successor rather than needing a report of its own.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Monotonic, and silently so. A report that has already been passed is ignored rather than rewinding
+    /// the list, because the one thing that can produce one is a retry after the host-key question, and a
+    /// card that jumped backwards would read as the connection having come undone.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal void Advance(ConnectionStep step)
+    {
+        if (State is not TerminalTabState.Connecting)
+        {
+            // Nothing to draw and nothing to correct. A late report from a handshake that has since
+            // finished or been given up on is not worth reopening a settled tab for.
+            return;
+        }
+
+        var reached = Steps.FirstOrDefault(row => row.Step == step);
+
+        if (reached is null || reached.IsDone)
+        {
+            return;
+        }
+
+        foreach (var row in Steps)
+        {
+            if (row.Step < step)
+            {
+                row.State = ConnectionStepState.Done;
+            }
+            else if (row.Step == step)
+            {
+                row.State = ConnectionStepState.Running;
+            }
+        }
+
+        Status = reached.Caption;
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(StepsDone));
+    }
+
     /// <summary>Takes ownership of the session that has just opened for this tab.</summary>
     internal void Opened(uint sessionId)
     {
@@ -194,6 +415,8 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
         Status = string.Empty;
         IsLive = true;
         State = TerminalTabState.Open;
+
+        CompleteSteps();
     }
 
     /// <summary>
@@ -208,9 +431,33 @@ internal sealed partial class TerminalTabViewModel : ObservableObject
     {
         Status = reason;
         IsLive = false;
+
+        // Before the state change, so the list is already correct the first time a view asks. The step that
+        // was running is where it stopped, and the ones behind it stay done: how far a refused connection
+        // got is the most useful thing the card still knows, and it is the difference between "that host is
+        // not there" and "that host is there and would not have me".
+        foreach (var row in Steps)
+        {
+            if (row.IsRunning)
+            {
+                row.State = ConnectionStepState.Stopped;
+            }
+        }
+
         State = TerminalTabState.Failed;
     }
 
+    /// <summary>Marks every step done, for a connection that is no longer being waited on.</summary>
+    private void CompleteSteps()
+    {
+        foreach (var row in Steps)
+        {
+            row.State = ConnectionStepState.Done;
+        }
+
+        OnPropertyChanged(nameof(StepsDone));
+    }
+
     partial void OnStateChanged(TerminalTabState value)
     {
         OnPropertyChanged(nameof(HasSession));

src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/VaultViewModel.cs

@@ -943,6 +943,31 @@ internal sealed class ConnectionAttemptEventArgs(Guid attemptId, string label, s
     internal string Address { get; } = address;
 }
 
+/// <summary>A connection that has got as far as a named step.</summary>
+/// <param name="attemptId">The attempt this is about.</param>
+/// <param name="step">The step that has just begun.</param>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <para>
+/// The fourth of the attempt events, and the only one that can be raised more than once for an attempt. It
+/// exists because the other three say a connection started and then, seconds later, whether it worked — and
+/// the seconds in between are the whole of what a user staring at a connecting card is trying to find out.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// <b>Raised on whichever thread the handshake is on.</b> SSH.NET reports the interior of a connection from
+/// its own thread, and this event is that report forwarded rather than a copy made on a timer, so a
+/// subscriber that touches a view model must marshal for itself. <c>MainWindowViewModel</c> does; see the
+/// handler.
+/// </para>
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed class ConnectionProgressEventArgs(Guid attemptId, ConnectionStep step) : EventArgs
+{
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="ConnectionAttemptEventArgs.AttemptId" />
+    internal Guid AttemptId { get; } = attemptId;
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="ConnectionProgressEventArgs" path="/param[@name='step']" />
+    internal ConnectionStep Step { get; } = step;
+}
+
 /// <summary>A connection that was asked for and did not happen.</summary>
 /// <param name="attemptId">The attempt that has just ended.</param>
 /// <param name="reason">What to say about it, in the tab.</param>
@@ -4127,6 +4152,15 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
     /// </remarks>
     internal event EventHandler<ConnectionAttemptEventArgs>? ConnectionStarting;
 
+    /// <summary>Raised as a connection this vault announced gets from one step to the next.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Between <see cref="ConnectionStarting"/> and whichever of the other two ends the attempt, any number
+    /// of times including none — a handshake fast enough to finish inside one turn reports nothing, which is
+    /// the honest account of it. See <see cref="ConnectionProgressEventArgs"/> for the threading, which is
+    /// the one way this event differs from its three neighbours.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal event EventHandler<ConnectionProgressEventArgs>? ConnectionProgress;
+
     /// <summary>Raised when a connection this vault announced does not become a session.</summary>
     /// <inheritdoc cref="ConnectionStarting" path="/remarks" />
     internal event EventHandler<ConnectionFailedEventArgs>? ConnectionFailed;
@@ -10889,6 +10923,53 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
         return true;
     }
 
+    /// <summary>Turns the handshake's phases into this attempt's progress events.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Forwarded rather than accumulated, because the tab is the thing that knows what has already happened
+    /// and this object deliberately does not: a connection here is one straight line from renderer to
+    /// session, and a running total of where it had got to would be a second copy of the state the card
+    /// already draws from the first.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>Deliberately not <c>System.Progress&lt;T&gt;</c></b>, which captures whatever synchronisation
+    /// context it happens to be constructed on and posts to it. That reads like a convenience and is really
+    /// a second place the marshalling decision gets made: silently, differently under a test with no
+    /// context, and — because a post is a later turn — out of order with respect to the failure or the
+    /// session that follows the phase. Raised inline instead, and the shell marshals once where it can be
+    /// seen. See <c>MainWindowViewModel.OnVaultConnectionProgress</c>.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private PhaseReporter ReporterFor(ConnectionAttemptEventArgs attempt) => new(phase =>
+        ConnectionProgress?.Invoke(this, new ConnectionProgressEventArgs(attempt.AttemptId, StepFor(phase))));
+
+    /// <summary>The step a handshake phase is reported to the shell as.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The whole of the mapping between the SSH assembly's four phases and the card's five steps, in one
+    /// place. <see cref="ConnectionStep.PreparingTerminal"/> is not here because nothing reports it: the tab
+    /// starts on it, and the first phase to arrive is what closes it.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static ConnectionStep StepFor(SshConnectionPhase phase) => phase switch
+    {
+        SshConnectionPhase.Reaching => ConnectionStep.Reaching,
+        SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey => ConnectionStep.CheckingHostKey,
+        SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating => ConnectionStep.Authenticating,
+        SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell => ConnectionStep.OpeningShell,
+        _ => ConnectionStep.Reaching,
+    };
+
+    /// <summary>Hands each phase straight to a delegate, on the thread that reported it.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The whole type, and it exists to be the thing <c>System.Progress&lt;T&gt;</c> is not — see the remark
+    /// at its one use. A lambda cannot implement an interface, and the alternative was widening the
+    /// workspace's parameter to <c>Action&lt;T&gt;</c>, which would have put a non-standard progress
+    /// contract into three assemblies to save one class here.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private sealed class PhaseReporter(Action<SshConnectionPhase> report) : IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>
+    {
+        public void Report(SshConnectionPhase value) => report(value);
+    }
+
     /// <summary>What a manual target reads as, once it has been taken apart.</summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// Separate from <see cref="ConnectionTarget"/> because a keychain host has no username of its own at
@@ -11166,10 +11247,7 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
         }
         catch (TimeoutException)
         {
-            Abandon(
-                attempt,
-                "The terminal did not start, so nothing was connected. The Microsoft Edge WebView2 "
-                + "runtime is probably missing or blocked; install it and try again.");
+            Abandon(attempt, RendererNeverStarted);
         }
         catch (SshHostKeyUnknownException exception)
         {
@@ -11194,6 +11272,29 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
         }
     }
 
+    /// <summary>What a renderer that never attached is reported as.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The wait is translated rather than reported for the reason <see cref="OpenSessionAsync"/> gives —
+    /// <see cref="TimeoutException"/> says only "The operation has timed out" — and the whole value of the
+    /// translation is naming where to look. Which is why it cannot be one sentence: the desktop's answer is
+    /// a runtime this application does not install, and the phone has no such runtime and no such answer.
+    /// Telling somebody on a handset to install Microsoft Edge WebView2 is worse than saying nothing, at the
+    /// one moment they are trying to work out what went wrong.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// A runtime check rather than a constructor parameter, for the reason
+    /// <c>MainWindowViewModel.GestureWait</c> records at length: which renderer is behind the terminal is a
+    /// fact about the platform this assembly is running on, not about one installation of it.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static string RendererNeverStarted =>
+        OperatingSystem.IsAndroid()
+            ? "The terminal did not start, so nothing was connected. Android's WebView is probably "
+                + "disabled or updating; check it in Settings and try again."
+            : "The terminal did not start, so nothing was connected. The Microsoft Edge WebView2 "
+                + "runtime is probably missing or blocked; install it and try again.";
+
     /// <summary>Says, in one place, that an attempt ended without a session and why.</summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// The reason goes to two places on purpose. The status line is where somebody watching this screen is
@@ -11238,6 +11339,8 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
         HostAuthentication authentication,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
+        // Not reported before the await: the tab is constructed with this step already running — see
+        // TerminalTabViewModel — because there is no moment between the two worth telling anybody about.
         await workspace.WaitForRendererAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(true);
 
         var request = new SshConnectionRequest(
@@ -11247,7 +11350,7 @@ internal sealed partial class VaultViewModel(
             authentication.Credential);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace
-            .OpenSessionAsync(request, TerminalSize.Default, cancellationToken)
+            .OpenSessionAsync(request, TerminalSize.Default, ReporterFor(attempt), cancellationToken)
             .ConfigureAwait(true);
 
         // The workspace has already opened a ticket for this session, with the address and the moment it

src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/WebAssets/terminal.css

@@ -78,6 +78,50 @@ body {
   height: 100%;
 }
 
+/*
+  ── THE BLACK STRIP UNDER THE TERMINAL ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+  xterm.css paints its scrolling viewport #000 — literally black, and its own comment says why: on macOS
+  the overlay scrollbar is only fully opaque over an opaque backdrop. Everywhere else that black is a
+  surface nobody sees, because the rows cover it — except along the bottom, where they do not. The fit
+  addon floors the row count, so whatever is left of the pane below the last whole row is viewport with
+  nothing drawn on it: a full-width black bar under the terminal, up to one line tall, against this
+  page's own #171a26. On Windows it is also where the classic scrollbar's bottom corner lands, which is
+  the light square at its right-hand end.
+
+  Repainting it in the page's own background is the whole fix. The remainder is still there — it is the
+  cost of a grid that has to divide evenly — but it now reads as the terminal's own margin rather than
+  as a strip of chrome that belongs to something else.
+*/
+.xterm .xterm-viewport {
+  background-color: var(--dodo-background);
+
+  /*
+    And the scrollbar itself, which WebView2 draws in the classic Windows style: a 15-pixel light-grey
+    channel with arrow buttons, down the right of a near-black terminal. Thin and in this page's own
+    colours instead — kept rather than hidden, because the scrollback is real and a surface that scrolls
+    with no sign that it does is worse than a quiet bar saying where you are.
+
+    Both spellings. scrollbar-width/-color is the standard one and is what current WebView2 and WebKitGTK
+    honour; ::-webkit-scrollbar is what older Chromium builds and WKWebView answer to. Neither is
+    load-bearing on its own and the two do not conflict — whichever the host understands wins.
+  */
+  scrollbar-width: thin;
+  scrollbar-color: color-mix(in srgb, var(--dodo-muted) 45%, transparent) transparent;
+}
+
+.xterm .xterm-viewport::-webkit-scrollbar {
+  width: 9px;
+}
+
+.xterm .xterm-viewport::-webkit-scrollbar-track {
+  background: transparent;
+}
+
+.xterm .xterm-viewport::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
+  background: color-mix(in srgb, var(--dodo-muted) 45%, transparent);
+  border-radius: 5px;
+}
+
 #status {
   position: absolute;
   left: 0;

src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/WebAssets/terminal.js

@@ -255,8 +255,31 @@ function createSession(sessionId) {
   // WebGL where it is available. Falling back rather than failing matters because a software
   // renderer is slow but usable, whereas a blank pane is not — and remote desktops and VMs
   // routinely have no usable GPU context.
+  //
+  // ◆ THE CONTEXT-LOSS HANDLER IS THE HALF THAT WAS MISSING, AND ON A PHONE IT IS THE WHOLE THING.
+  //
+  // The addon does not recover from a lost GPU context by itself, and it does not fail loudly either:
+  // it stays loaded over a dead context and draws nothing at all. What that looks like from outside is
+  // a terminal that is connected, still accepting keystrokes, still acknowledging output — and blank.
+  // xterm's own guidance is to dispose the addon and let the DOM renderer take over, which is what this
+  // does; the addon is not reloaded afterwards, because a pane that lost the context once is on a
+  // surface that will do it again and thrashing between renderers is worse than being slow.
+  //
+  // Losing it is ordinary on Android and nearly unheard of on Windows, which is why this went unnoticed
+  // for so long. Collapsing the renderer sets the native view to GONE — see
+  // AndroidNativeControlHostImpl.HideWithSize — and a WebView with no surface has no GL context. The
+  // shell collapses it every time a tab starts connecting, every time the connect sheet opens and every
+  // time the app is backgrounded, so on a phone the first loss arrives within seconds of the first
+  // session. WebView2 hides a child HWND instead and keeps rendering throughout; see
+  // docs/platform-flags.md.
   try {
-    term.loadAddon(new WebglAddon.WebglAddon());
+    const webgl = new WebglAddon.WebglAddon();
+
+    // Subscribed before loadAddon, because loadAddon is what activates the addon and a context that is
+    // already gone can be reported from inside that call.
+    webgl.onContextLoss(() => webgl.dispose());
+
+    term.loadAddon(webgl);
   } catch (error) {
     console.warn('WebGL renderer unavailable; falling back to canvas.', error);
   }
@@ -296,10 +319,17 @@ function activate(sessionId) {
 // caller, because more than one path reaches here: a minimised window, and a splitter dragged to the edge
 // once splits land.
 //
-// It is *not* what protects the vault's lock screen, which an earlier version of this comment claimed.
-// Collapsing the host's WebView hides a native child window without resizing it, so this page's viewport
-// does not change, no observer fires and this function is never called — measured with a live shell, and
-// confirmed by removing the guard and finding the lock cycle equally clean. See docs/platform-flags.md.
+// It is *not* what protects the vault's lock screen on the desktop, which an earlier version of this
+// comment claimed. Collapsing WebView2 hides a native child window without resizing it, so this page's
+// viewport does not change, no observer fires and this function is never called — measured with a live
+// shell, and confirmed by removing the guard and finding the lock cycle equally clean. See
+// docs/platform-flags.md.
+//
+// On the phone it *is* load-bearing, and that is the one place the two heads differ here. Android hides a
+// native child by setting it GONE, and a GONE view is skipped by its parent's layout — so collapsing the
+// renderer really does take this page's viewport to nothing, the observer really does fire, and without
+// the guard every lock, every connect sheet and every trip to the background would reflow the remote pty
+// to 2x1 and mangle the scrollback it wrapped.
 const MINIMUM_FITTABLE_PIXELS = 40;
 
 function resize(session, sessionId) {
@@ -417,8 +447,23 @@ function handleFrame(buffer) {
         is something only this page sees — and a shell that receives a multi-line command inside those
         markers treats every newline as text. Without them it treats each one as "run this", so a
         three-line snippet runs three commands the moment it is inserted.
+
+        ◆ ONE LINE IS TYPED INSTEAD, and this is not an optimisation. Bracketed paste is what readline
+        uses to decide it has been pasted into, and bash marks the result as an active region: the
+        inserted command sits at the prompt in reverse video, looking selected, until the next
+        keystroke clears it. That is right for a paste somebody made with the clipboard and wrong for a
+        snippet they picked off the sidebar, which should read as though they had typed it.
+
+        The markers are only load-bearing for text carrying a newline — that is the whole of what the
+        paragraph above protects against — so a single-line snippet does not need them and is written
+        as keystrokes. Multi-line still pastes, highlight and all, because "runs three commands
+        unasked" is the worse of the two.
       */
-      session.term.paste(text);
+      if (text.includes('\n') || text.includes('\r')) {
+        session.term.paste(text);
+      } else {
+        session.term.input(text);
+      }
 
       /*
         And the Enter goes through input(), deliberately outside that wrapper. A '\r' appended to the
@@ -430,6 +475,15 @@ function handleFrame(buffer) {
         session.term.input('\r');
       }
 
+      /*
+        The caret goes back where the text landed. Half of it, anyway: this reaches
+        document.activeElement and nothing further, so it is what makes the pane the page's own focused
+        element and what stops a hidden textarea from keeping the caret. The other half is Win32
+        focus — the sidebar row that sent this frame took it — and only the host can give that back;
+        see MainWindowViewModel.TerminalFocusRequested and MainWindow's own FocusTerminalWhenLaidOut.
+      */
+      session.term.focus();
+
       break;
     }
 

src/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh/SshConnection.cs

@@ -121,12 +121,53 @@ public interface ISshConnection : IAsyncDisposable
     Task<ISshShellSession> OpenShellAsync(TerminalSize size, CancellationToken cancellationToken);
 }
 
+/// <summary>
+/// How far a connection being made has got.
+/// </summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <para>
+/// These are the boundaries a client can actually observe, and there are deliberately no others. SSH.NET
+/// runs the whole handshake inside one <c>ConnectAsync</c> and raises exactly one event from the middle of
+/// it — <c>HostKeyReceived</c>, once the key exchange has produced a key to show. That event is the only
+/// interior moment there is, so it is the only interior phase named here: everything before it is
+/// <see cref="Reaching"/> and everything after it is <see cref="Authenticating"/>.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// ◆ <b>Nothing here is a guess about elapsed time or a fraction of the way through.</b> Each value is
+/// reported at the instant the thing it names actually starts, which is what makes it safe for a screen to
+/// draw as fact. A phase that took no measurable time is reported anyway and simply passes at once — that
+/// is a true account of a fast handshake, not a step that was skipped. See the transfer strip's own remark
+/// in TransfersScreen.axaml for why this design does not invent furniture for states it cannot measure.
+/// </para>
+/// </remarks>
+public enum SshConnectionPhase
+{
+    /// <summary>Resolving the name, opening the socket, and exchanging keys. Before any key is known.</summary>
+    Reaching = 0,
+
+    /// <summary>The server has offered a host key, and its trust is being decided.</summary>
+    CheckingHostKey = 1,
+
+    /// <summary>The key was accepted. The credential is being offered.</summary>
+    Authenticating = 2,
+
+    /// <summary>Authenticated. A pseudo-terminal and a shell channel are being opened.</summary>
+    OpeningShell = 3,
+}
+
 /// <summary>Opens connections, enforcing host key trust before authenticating.</summary>
 public interface ISshConnectionFactory
 {
     /// <summary>
     /// Connects and authenticates.
     /// </summary>
+    /// <param name="request">What to connect to, as whom, and with what.</param>
+    /// <param name="progress">
+    /// Told each phase as it begins, or null to report nothing. Called from whichever thread the handshake
+    /// is on — SSH.NET raises host key verification on its own — so an implementation that touches a UI must
+    /// marshal for itself.
+    /// </param>
+    /// <param name="cancellationToken">Abandons the attempt.</param>
     /// <exception cref="SshHostKeyUnknownException">
     /// The host has no pinned key. The caller must show the fingerprint, and only on explicit
     /// confirmation record it via <see cref="IKnownHostStore.TrustAsync"/> and retry.
@@ -134,5 +175,8 @@ public interface ISshConnectionFactory
     /// <exception cref="SshHostKeyMismatchException">
     /// The presented key differs from the pin. There is no retry path: this is a hard block.
     /// </exception>
-    Task<ISshConnection> ConnectAsync(SshConnectionRequest request, CancellationToken cancellationToken);
+    Task<ISshConnection> ConnectAsync(
+        SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
+        CancellationToken cancellationToken);
 }

src/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh/SshNetConnectionFactory.cs

@@ -42,13 +42,14 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
     /// <inheritdoc />
     public async Task<ISshConnection> ConnectAsync(
         SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
         ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(request);
 
         var client = new SshClient(BuildConnectionInfo(request));
 
-        var gate = await ConnectThroughHostKeyGateAsync(client, request, cancellationToken)
+        var gate = await ConnectThroughHostKeyGateAsync(client, request, progress, cancellationToken)
             .ConfigureAwait(false);
 
         return new SshNetConnection(client, gate.Presented!);
@@ -68,7 +69,10 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
 
         var client = new SftpClient(BuildConnectionInfo(request)) { BufferSize = SftpBufferSize };
 
-        var gate = await ConnectThroughHostKeyGateAsync(client, request, cancellationToken)
+        // No progress for the file-transfer path. The screen that waits on one is the file browser, which
+        // reports itself, and a second connection opened behind an already-open shell has nothing the user
+        // is watching a step list for.
+        var gate = await ConnectThroughHostKeyGateAsync(client, request, progress: null, cancellationToken)
             .ConfigureAwait(false);
 
         // Read once, here, rather than per call. SftpClient.WorkingDirectory canonicalises against the server
@@ -101,12 +105,18 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
     private async Task<HostKeyGate> ConnectThroughHostKeyGateAsync(
         BaseClient client,
         SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
-        var gate = new HostKeyGate(knownHosts, request, cancellationToken);
+        var gate = new HostKeyGate(knownHosts, request, progress, cancellationToken);
 
         client.HostKeyReceived += gate.OnHostKeyReceived;
 
+        // Before the await rather than inside the gate, because this phase is the part of the handshake
+        // that happens before there is anything to raise an event about: the lookup, the socket and the key
+        // exchange. Nothing else can report the start of it.
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Reaching);
+
         try
         {
             await client.ConnectAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
@@ -139,6 +149,7 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
     private sealed class HostKeyGate(
         IKnownHostStore knownHosts,
         SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
         /// <summary>What the server offered, once the handshake has reached that point.</summary>
@@ -157,6 +168,11 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
 
             Presented = presentation;
 
+            // Reported before the lookup rather than after it, because the lookup is the wait: this is a
+            // vault-backed store on the handshake thread, and on a locked or cold vault it is the part of
+            // "checking the host key" long enough to be worth naming.
+            progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey);
+
             // Looked up here rather than before connecting, because the negotiated algorithm is only
             // known now and a server may choose a different one than it did last time.
             //
@@ -179,6 +195,15 @@ public sealed class SshNetConnectionFactory(IKnownHostStore knownHosts)
             var matches = SshHostKeyFingerprint.Equal(pinned, presentation.Fingerprint);
             mismatch = !matches;
             e.CanTrust = matches;
+
+            // Only on acceptance, and here rather than after the await above, because this is the last
+            // moment SSH.NET gives anyone: returning true from this handler is what lets the handshake go on
+            // to offer the credential, and it does not come back until it has an answer either way. A
+            // refusal reports nothing — there is no authentication about to happen for it to be true of.
+            if (matches)
+            {
+                progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating);
+            }
         }
 
         /// <summary>The specific exception for a refusal this gate caused, or null if it did not.</summary>

src/DodoSSH.Client.Terminal/TerminalWorkspace.cs

@@ -369,13 +369,31 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspace : IAsyncDisposable
         dataPlane.RendererAttached.WaitAsync(options.RendererTimeout, cancellationToken);
 
     /// <summary>Connects to a host and starts a terminal for it.</summary>
+    /// <param name="request">What to connect to, as whom, and with what.</param>
+    /// <param name="size">The pseudo-terminal's initial size.</param>
+    /// <param name="progress">
+    /// Told each phase as it begins, or null to report nothing. Reported from the handshake's own thread;
+    /// see <see cref="SshConnectionPhase"/>. Optional because a session opened by anything other than the
+    /// connecting card has nobody watching a step list for it, which is every caller but one.
+    /// </param>
+    /// <param name="cancellationToken">Abandons the attempt.</param>
     /// <returns>The session id, which identifies this terminal in the renderer.</returns>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <see cref="SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell"/> is reported here rather than by the factory because
+    /// this is where it happens: the factory's work ends with an authenticated connection, and asking for a
+    /// pseudo-terminal on it is a separate round trip this method makes.
+    /// </remarks>
     public async Task<uint> OpenSessionAsync(
         SshConnectionRequest request,
         TerminalSize size,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
-        var connection = await connections.ConnectAsync(request, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
+        var connection = await connections
+            .ConnectAsync(request, progress, cancellationToken)
+            .ConfigureAwait(false);
+
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell);
 
         ISshShellSession shell;
         try

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/LayoutHarness.cs

@@ -122,8 +122,14 @@ internal static class LayoutHarness
     /// <summary>The v5b session shell's own right-hand sidebar, from <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c>.</summary>
     internal const double SessionSidebarWidth = 300;
 
-    /// <summary>The v5b session shell's own host header, from <c>SessionHeader.axaml</c>.</summary>
-    internal const double SessionHeaderHeight = 60;
+    /*
+      A third session-shell constant stood here through wave B and C: SessionHeaderHeight, 60 pixels, for
+      the host header that sat above the pane on both surfaces. v5c-4 retires that row — its address and
+      its cross-surface button both live in the sidebar now; see SessionSidebar.axaml — so the pane between
+      the tab row and the status bar is 60 pixels taller and this budget no longer subtracts anything for
+      it. The same treatment the retired window-wide tab strip got above, and for the same reason: a
+      constant for chrome that is not drawn is a budget that quietly under-measures every screen.
+    */
 
     /// <summary>The v5b session shell's own status bar, from <c>SessionStatusBar.axaml</c>.</summary>
     internal const double SessionStatusBarHeight = 37;
@@ -146,12 +152,12 @@ internal static class LayoutHarness
     /// The arithmetic, top to bottom: <see cref="ScreenHeight"/> less <see cref="SessionShellPadding"/> on
     /// both the top and the bottom of the outer padded column, less <see cref="SessionTabRowHeight"/> for the
     /// tab row that sits above the bordered container, less <see cref="SessionShellBorderThickness"/> on both
-    /// the top and the bottom of that border, less <see cref="SessionHeaderHeight"/> and
-    /// <see cref="SessionStatusBarHeight"/> for the two fixed strips the pane sits between.
+    /// the top and the bottom of that border, less <see cref="SessionStatusBarHeight"/> for the one fixed
+    /// strip left below the pane — v5c-4 retired the header above it; see the note where its constant was.
     /// </remarks>
     internal static double SessionScreenHeight =>
         ScreenHeight - (2 * SessionShellPadding) - SessionTabRowHeight - (2 * SessionShellBorderThickness)
-        - SessionHeaderHeight - SessionStatusBarHeight;
+        - SessionStatusBarHeight;
 
     /// <summary>
     /// The width a session-shell screen gets, with or without <c>SessionSidebar</c>'s own QUICK ACCESS

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/NavRailTests.cs

@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
 using Avalonia;
 using Avalonia.Controls;
+using Avalonia.Controls.Presenters;
 using Avalonia.Controls.Primitives;
 using Avalonia.Headless;
 using Avalonia.Input;
+using Avalonia.Media;
 using Avalonia.VisualTree;
 using DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
 using DodoSSH.Client.Session;
@@ -272,6 +274,49 @@ public sealed class NavRailTests : IAsyncLifetime
         });
     }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Every row in the popover rests flat, and the pointer is what fills one.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <c>Button.poprow</c> set a radius and a padding and left the Background alone, so each row wore the
+    /// Fluent theme's own button fill: the account menu drew as six raised pills where the design draws six
+    /// lines of text. Read as a colour off the templated presenter rather than off the Button, because that
+    /// is where the theme puts its brush and therefore the only place the absence of one can be proven.
+    ///
+    /// The hover half is asserted too, and it is what stops "flat" being fixed by making the rows
+    /// permanently invisible to the pointer: a menu row that does not answer a pointer at all is a worse
+    /// answer than one that answers wrongly.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task PopoverRowsAreFlatUntilThePointerFindsThem()
+    {
+        await OnTheRailAsync((rail, window) =>
+        {
+            Click(UserChip(rail), window);
+
+            var row = PopoverRow(window, "Settings");
+            var presenter = row.GetVisualDescendants()
+                .OfType<ContentPresenter>()
+                .First(candidate => candidate.Name is "PART_ContentPresenter");
+
+            var resting = presenter.Background as ISolidColorBrush;
+
+            (resting is null || resting.Color.A == 0).ShouldBeTrue(
+                $"a popover row rests flat, and this one is filled with {resting?.Color}");
+
+            var centre = row.TranslatePoint(new Point(row.Bounds.Width / 2, row.Bounds.Height / 2), window)
+                ?? throw new InvalidOperationException("the row is not in this window's tree");
+
+            window.MouseMove(centre);
+            LayoutHarness.Settle(window, LayoutHarness.NavRailWidth, LayoutHarness.ScreenHeight);
+
+            row.IsPointerOver.ShouldBeTrue("the pointer was moved onto it");
+            (presenter.Background as ISolidColorBrush).ShouldNotBeNull().Color.A.ShouldNotBe(
+                (byte)0,
+                "a row that does not change under the pointer is one nobody can tell is clickable");
+        });
+    }
+
     // ---- Helpers ----
 
     private Task OnTheRailAsync(Action<NavRail, Window> body) =>

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/ScreenLayoutTests.cs

@@ -1274,7 +1274,7 @@ public sealed class ScreenLayoutTests : IAsyncLifetime
     /// this screen — see <c>ShowsQuickAccessSidebar</c> — so this is the test that actually reaches the
     /// 472-pixel budget <see cref="LayoutHarness.SessionScreenWidth"/> computes, 204 pixels a side. DISCONNECT
     /// is what is left in the remote pane's own connected strip now; the account-at-host chip that used to
-    /// share the row with it moved out, because <c>SessionHeader</c> already prints the same address above
+    /// share the row with it moved out, because the session shell already prints the same address beside
     /// this screen — see <c>TransfersScreen.axaml</c>'s own remark on the strip for why keeping both was the
     /// thing squeezing DISCONNECT off the edge at this width.
     /// </para>

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/SessionSidebarTests.cs

@@ -0,0 +1,184 @@
+using Avalonia;
+using Avalonia.Controls;
+using Avalonia.Headless;
+using Avalonia.Input;
+using Avalonia.VisualTree;
+using DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Session;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Shell.ViewModels;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Ssh;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Storage;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Terminal;
+using NSubstitute;
+
+namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests;
+
+/// <summary>
+/// The session shell's right-hand column: its two widths, and what a long address does to the row it shares.
+/// </summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// Worth a suite of its own since v5c-4, which gave this control two things it did not have: a session block
+/// at its head — the address, and the cross-surface button, both inherited from the 60-pixel header row that
+/// pass retired — and a closed state. The first is exactly the shape this harness exists for, a fixed-width
+/// column holding a string of unbounded length beside a button that must stay clickable; the second is a
+/// width the rest of the window has to cope with, and <c>MainWindow.axaml</c> copes with it by asking this
+/// control how wide it is rather than by knowing.
+/// </remarks>
+public sealed class SessionSidebarTests : IAsyncLifetime
+{
+    /// <summary>The widths <c>SessionSidebar.axaml</c> declares for its two states.</summary>
+    private const double OpenWidth = 300;
+
+    /// <inheritdoc cref="OpenWidth" />
+    private const double RailWidth = 34;
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Long on purpose, and longer than the column is wide at this font: the address is the one string here
+    /// whose length nobody controls, and it shares its row with the button that closes the column.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private const string LongAddress = "a-very-long-deploy-account@db-primary.eu-west-1.internal.example:22022";
+
+    private string directory = null!;
+    private ClientCacheFactory caches = null!;
+    private TerminalWorkspace workspace = null!;
+    private MainWindowViewModel shell = null!;
+
+    private static CancellationToken Token => TestContext.Current.CancellationToken;
+
+    /// <inheritdoc />
+    public ValueTask InitializeAsync()
+    {
+        // A profile of this test's own rather than ClientPaths.Default: closing the sidebar is written
+        // through to disk — see ClientSettings.SessionSidebarOpen — and a suite that used the default paths
+        // would be editing the preferences of whoever ran it.
+        directory = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), $"dodossh-sidebar-{Guid.CreateVersion7():N}");
+        caches = ClientCacheFactory.ForMemory($"session-sidebar-{Guid.CreateVersion7():N}");
+
+        workspace = new TerminalWorkspace(
+            new InMemoryTerminalAssetProvider(new Dictionary<string, TerminalAsset>(StringComparer.Ordinal)),
+            Substitute.For<ISshConnectionFactory>(),
+            TimeProvider.System);
+
+        shell = new MainWindowViewModel(
+            new ClientPaths(directory),
+            caches,
+            workspace,
+            new VaultKnownHostStore(),
+            Substitute.For<IDeviceKeyStore>(),
+            (_, _) => throw new NotSupportedException("nothing here signs in"),
+            TimeProvider.System,
+            Substitute.For<ISftpSessionFactory>())
+        {
+            State = ShellState.Unlocked,
+        };
+
+        return ValueTask.CompletedTask;
+    }
+
+    /// <inheritdoc />
+    public async ValueTask DisposeAsync()
+    {
+        await shell.DisposeAsync();
+        await workspace.DisposeAsync();
+        caches.Dispose();
+
+        if (Directory.Exists(directory))
+        {
+            Directory.Delete(directory, recursive: true);
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The address trims and the close button stays where it is; that is the whole claim. Asserted through
+    /// <see cref="LayoutHarness.Unreachable"/> rather than by reading the address's own width, because what
+    /// matters is not how much of the string is shown — an ellipsis is an honest answer — but that nothing
+    /// beside it was pushed out of the column to make room.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task TheColumnIsThreeHundredWide_AndALongAddressPushesNothingOutOfIt()
+    {
+        await OnTheSidebarAsync((sidebar, window) =>
+        {
+            // DesiredSize rather than Bounds, and that distinction is the control's own: the width lives on
+            // the Border inside it, so what the surrounding "Auto" column is given — and what this asks for
+            // — is what the control asks for, not how wide a host window happened to stretch it.
+            sidebar.DesiredSize.Width.ShouldBe(OpenWidth);
+
+            shell.SessionAddress.ShouldBe(LongAddress, "the fixture selected a tab with one");
+
+            LayoutHarness.Unreachable(window).ShouldBeEmpty();
+        });
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The cross-surface button that used to live in the header row. Read off the control rather than off the
+    /// view model, so a row bound to the wrong property — or to nothing, which a compiled binding would still
+    /// draw as an empty button — fails this.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task TheCrossSurfaceButtonNamesTheOtherSurface()
+    {
+        await OnTheSidebarAsync((sidebar, _) =>
+        {
+            var button = sidebar.GetVisualDescendants()
+                .OfType<Button>()
+                .First(candidate => candidate.Classes.Contains("headerghost"));
+
+            button.Content.ShouldBe("Open SFTP");
+        });
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Closed, the control is still drawn and is still the thing the window asks for a width — see
+    /// <c>MainWindow.axaml</c>'s own "Auto" column. What it must not be is nothing: a rail with the way back
+    /// on it is the difference between a panel somebody closed and a panel somebody lost.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task ClosingTheColumnLeavesTheRailThatBringsItBack()
+    {
+        await OnTheSidebarAsync((sidebar, window) =>
+        {
+            shell.IsSessionSidebarOpen = false;
+            LayoutHarness.Settle(window, LayoutHarness.MinimumWidth, LayoutHarness.MinimumHeight);
+
+            sidebar.DesiredSize.Width.ShouldBe(RailWidth);
+
+            var grip = sidebar.GetVisualDescendants()
+                .OfType<Button>()
+                .Single(candidate => candidate.Classes.Contains("sidebargrip") && candidate.IsEffectivelyVisible);
+
+            var centre = grip.TranslatePoint(new Point(grip.Bounds.Width / 2, grip.Bounds.Height / 2), window)
+                ?? throw new InvalidOperationException("the grip is not in this window's tree");
+
+            window.MouseDown(centre, MouseButton.Left);
+            window.MouseUp(centre, MouseButton.Left);
+
+            shell.IsSessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeTrue("the rail's own button is what reopens the column");
+
+            LayoutHarness.Settle(window, LayoutHarness.MinimumWidth, LayoutHarness.MinimumHeight);
+            sidebar.DesiredSize.Width.ShouldBe(OpenWidth);
+        });
+    }
+
+    private Task OnTheSidebarAsync(Action<SessionSidebar, Window> body) =>
+        LayoutHarness.OnTheUiThreadAsync(
+            () =>
+            {
+                shell.Tabs.Add(new TerminalTabViewModel(1, "db-primary", LongAddress));
+                shell.SelectTabCommand.Execute(shell.Tabs[0]);
+
+                var sidebar = new SessionSidebar { DataContext = shell, ShowsSnips = true };
+                var window = LayoutHarness.HostAtMinimumSize(
+                    sidebar, LayoutHarness.MinimumWidth, LayoutHarness.MinimumHeight);
+
+                try
+                {
+                    body(sidebar, window);
+                }
+                finally
+                {
+                    window.Close();
+                }
+            },
+            Token);
+}

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Layout.Tests/TitleBarTests.cs

@@ -101,4 +101,59 @@ public sealed class TitleBarTests : IAsyncLifetime
             },
             Token);
     }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The chip that says which chord opens the pill beside it. The design's own is 34 pixels wide because
+    /// the design's own label is ⌘K — two glyphs — and this build substitutes "CTRL K", which at 10.5 mono is
+    /// wider than that. It shipped clipped: the chip drew "CTRL" and half of the K, which reads as a rendering
+    /// glitch rather than as a keyboard shortcut.
+    ///
+    /// Asserted as "the chip is at least as wide as its own text", not against a number. A pixel count would
+    /// have to be re-derived by hand every time the font, the size or the wording moved, and the thing that
+    /// actually matters is the relationship between the two.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task TheKeyboardChipIsWideEnoughForTheChordItNames()
+    {
+        await LayoutHarness.OnTheUiThreadAsync(
+            () =>
+            {
+                var bar = new TitleBar { DataContext = shell };
+                var window = LayoutHarness.HostAtMinimumSize(
+                    bar, LayoutHarness.MinimumWidth, LayoutHarness.TitleBarHeight);
+
+                try
+                {
+                    var label = bar.GetVisualDescendants()
+                        .OfType<TextBlock>()
+                        .Single(text => string.Equals(text.Text, "CTRL K", StringComparison.Ordinal));
+
+                    var chip = label.GetVisualAncestors().OfType<Border>().First();
+
+                    // Measured on a copy under an unbounded constraint, not read off the label in the tree.
+                    // A TextBlock's own DesiredSize is already clipped to what it was given, so the laid-out
+                    // one reports 34 inside a 34-pixel chip whether or not the text fits — which is exactly
+                    // the state this test exists to fail on.
+                    var natural = new TextBlock
+                    {
+                        Text = label.Text,
+                        FontFamily = label.FontFamily,
+                        FontSize = label.FontSize,
+                        FontWeight = label.FontWeight,
+                    };
+
+                    natural.Measure(Size.Infinity);
+
+                    natural.DesiredSize.Width.ShouldBeGreaterThan(0, "the chord is a real run of text");
+                    chip.Bounds.Width.ShouldBeGreaterThanOrEqualTo(
+                        natural.DesiredSize.Width,
+                        "a chip narrower than its own label draws part of the chord and cuts the rest");
+                }
+                finally
+                {
+                    window.Close();
+                }
+            },
+            Token);
+    }
 }

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/FakeSsh.cs

@@ -40,18 +40,32 @@ internal sealed class FakeSshConnectionFactory : ISshConnectionFactory, ISftpSes
     /// <inheritdoc />
     public async Task<ISshConnection> ConnectAsync(
         SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
         Requests.Add(request);
 
+        // Before the gate rather than after it, which is what makes this fake useful for the connecting
+        // card: a test that holds Gate open is a connection stuck partway through, and the step list has to
+        // show it stuck on a named step rather than on none.
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Reaching);
+
         if (Gate is { } gate)
         {
             await gate.Task.WaitAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
         }
 
-        return Failure is { } failure
-            ? throw failure
-            : new FakeSshConnection(request);
+        if (Failure is { } failure)
+        {
+            throw failure;
+        }
+
+        // Only on the way to succeeding. A failure reported as having authenticated would let a test pass
+        // while the card showed a refused connection getting one step further than it did.
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey);
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating);
+
+        return new FakeSshConnection(request);
     }
 
     /// <inheritdoc />

tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/ShellFlowTests.cs

@@ -143,7 +143,14 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
             {
                 clipboard.Add(text);
                 return Task.CompletedTask;
-            });
+            },
+
+            // Inline, because this suite has no window and therefore no dispatcher to drain — the same
+            // answer TransferQueueingTests reached, and for the reason its own remark gives: reaching
+            // Dispatcher.UIThread from a test means asserting on a queue owned by whichever class touched
+            // it first. Running the action where it was raised takes the thread out of the question, and
+            // every phase this suite reports is raised on the thread doing the asserting anyway.
+            post: action => action());
 
         return ValueTask.CompletedTask;
     }
@@ -1303,6 +1310,119 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
         shell.IsConnectingShowing.ShouldBeFalse();
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// What the card draws while the stretch above is going on. The tab used to carry one line of prose
+    /// fixed at the moment it was created, which made a handshake stuck on a key exchange look exactly like
+    /// one stuck on a dead socket — and made a connection that was progressing look exactly like one that
+    /// was not.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The gate is held open on the step the fake reports before it, so this asserts the state the card is
+    /// actually drawn in rather than one it passes through: one step behind, one step lit, three not
+    /// reached. Nothing here waits or polls, which is the other half of the claim — the report arrives on
+    /// the thread that raised it and the tab is up to date in the same turn.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task Connecting_LightsTheStepTheHandshakeHasActuallyReached()
+    {
+        var vault = await ReadyToConnectAsync();
+
+        await using var renderer = await FakeRenderer.AttachAsync(workspace, Token);
+
+        ssh.Gate = new TaskCompletionSource();
+        var connecting = vault.ConnectCommand.ExecuteAsync(null);
+
+        var tab = shell.Tabs.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
+
+        tab.Steps.Select(step => step.State).ShouldBe(
+        [
+            ConnectionStepState.Done,
+            ConnectionStepState.Running,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+        ],
+        "the renderer attached, the host is being reached, and nothing after that has happened");
+
+        tab.StepsDone.ShouldBe(1, "the track fills to what finished, and the running step is not half a step");
+        tab.Status.ShouldBe("Reaching the host");
+
+        ssh.Gate.SetResult();
+        await connecting;
+
+        tab.Steps.ShouldAllBe(step => step.IsDone, "a session that opened got through all of them");
+        tab.StepsDone.ShouldBe(tab.StepCount);
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The half of the step list a progress bar could not do: where it stopped is kept, and the steps behind
+    /// it stay done. That is the difference between "that host is not there" and "that host is there and
+    /// would not have me", and it is the question the reason sentence alone often does not settle.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task ARefusedConnection_KeepsTheStepItStoppedOn()
+    {
+        var vault = await ReadyToConnectAsync();
+
+        await using var renderer = await FakeRenderer.AttachAsync(workspace, Token);
+
+        ssh.Failure = new InvalidOperationException("No route to host.");
+
+        await vault.ConnectCommand.ExecuteAsync(null);
+
+        var tab = shell.Tabs.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
+
+        tab.Steps.Select(step => step.State).ShouldBe(
+        [
+            ConnectionStepState.Done,
+            ConnectionStepState.Stopped,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+            ConnectionStepState.Pending,
+        ],
+        "it got as far as reaching the host and no further");
+
+        tab.Steps[1].Mark.ShouldBe("✕", "and says so without relying on the colour");
+
+        // The reason still goes where it always went. The list says how far, and this says what happened.
+        tab.Status.ShouldBe("No route to host.");
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// A report that arrives for an attempt the shell has forgotten. Giving up on a connecting tab removes
+    /// it while the handshake is still running — see <c>CloseTabAsync</c> — so every phase reported after
+    /// that has no tab to land on. Dropped rather than resurrecting the tab, and above all not thrown: the
+    /// handshake is still going, and its session is still adopted if it opens.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task GivingUpOnATab_LeavesLaterPhasesWithNothingToDo()
+    {
+        var vault = await ReadyToConnectAsync();
+
+        await using var renderer = await FakeRenderer.AttachAsync(workspace, Token);
+
+        ssh.Gate = new TaskCompletionSource();
+        var connecting = vault.ConnectCommand.ExecuteAsync(null);
+
+        var tab = shell.Tabs.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
+        await shell.CloseTabCommand.ExecuteAsync(tab);
+
+        // Everything after the gate — the host key, the credential, the shell — is reported to a shell that
+        // no longer has a tab for this attempt.
+        ssh.Gate.SetResult();
+        await connecting;
+
+        // The session opened anyway and was adopted, which is the behaviour giving up already promised.
+        var adopted = shell.Tabs.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
+        adopted.HasSession.ShouldBeTrue();
+        adopted.ShouldNotBe(tab);
+
+        // And the forgotten tab was left where it was rather than being advanced from the sidelines.
+        tab.Steps[1].IsRunning.ShouldBeTrue("nothing moved it on after the shell let go of it");
+    }
+
     /// <remarks>
     /// A refusal has to end up somewhere the user will see it, and by the time one arrives they are quite
     /// likely looking at another screen — which is exactly what not blocking bought. The tab is that place,
@@ -2341,6 +2461,7 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
             new SshConnectionRequest("host.invalid", 22, "dodo", new SshPasswordCredential("irrelevant")),
             TerminalSize.Default,
+            progress: null,
             Token);
 
         workspace.LiveSessionCount.ShouldBe(1);
@@ -6377,12 +6498,68 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
         shell.IsTerminalShowing.ShouldBeTrue();
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// v5c-4 retired the session shell's own header row and moved its cross-surface button into the sidebar,
+    /// where one control is drawn on both surfaces — so the two directions above are reached through one
+    /// command and one label, resolved by the shell. This is that resolution: the same two outcomes the two
+    /// tests above assert, from the row a user actually clicks now.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task TheSidebarsCrossSurfaceRow_NamesAndOpensWhicheverSurfaceIsNotShowing()
+    {
+        await ConnectedHostWithAPinAsync();
+
+        shell.IsTerminalSurface.ShouldBeTrue();
+        shell.SessionCrossSurfaceLabel.ShouldBe("Open SFTP");
+
+        await shell.OpenOtherSurfaceCommand.ExecuteAsync(null);
+
+        shell.IsTransfersShowing.ShouldBeTrue();
+        shell.Transfers.SelectedHost.ShouldNotBeNull().Label.ShouldBe("prod-db");
+        shell.SessionCrossSurfaceLabel.ShouldBe("Open terminal", "the row turns over with the surface");
+
+        var tabsBefore = shell.Tabs.Count;
+
+        await shell.OpenOtherSurfaceCommand.ExecuteAsync(null);
+
+        shell.Tabs.Count.ShouldBe(tabsBefore + 1, "the other direction dials a terminal at the browsed host");
+        shell.IsTerminalShowing.ShouldBeTrue();
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Closing the sidebar is a preference about this machine, so it outlives the window — see
+    /// <c>ClientSettings.SessionSidebarOpen</c>. Asserted against the store rather than against a second
+    /// shell built over the same profile: what a fresh launch reads is exactly what is on disk, and building
+    /// another shell here would prove the constructor twice and the storage once.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task ClosingTheSidebar_IsRememberedForTheNextLaunch()
+    {
+        await ConnectedHostWithAPinAsync();
+
+        shell.IsSessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeTrue("open is the default, and nothing has closed it");
+
+        shell.ToggleSessionSidebarCommand.Execute(null);
+
+        shell.IsSessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeFalse();
+        new ClientSettingsStore(paths).Read().SessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeFalse();
+
+        shell.ToggleSessionSidebarCommand.Execute(null);
+
+        shell.IsSessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeTrue();
+        new ClientSettingsStore(paths).Read().SessionSidebarOpen.ShouldBeTrue("and reopening is remembered too");
+    }
+
     /// <remarks>
     /// The sidebar's SNIPS row, wired through <c>SnippetsViewModel.InsertCommand</c> rather than a second
     /// insert path — see the deviation recorded on <c>MainWindowViewModel.InsertSnippetCommand</c>. Proven
     /// through a real connected tab and a real renderer, the same fixture <c>InsertingASnippet_...</c> above
     /// uses for the standalone screen, because what is worth proving here is that the shell's command reaches
     /// that same mechanism rather than reimplementing it.
+    ///
+    /// The focus request is asserted here rather than in a test of its own because it is part of what this
+    /// click does: the row that typed the command took the keyboard with it, and only the window can give it
+    /// back. See <c>MainWindowViewModel.TerminalFocusRequested</c>.
     /// </remarks>
     [Fact]
     public async Task InsertingASnippetFromTheSidebarTypesItIntoTheSelectedTab()
@@ -6394,9 +6571,38 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
 
         var row = snippets.Visible.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
 
+        var focusRequests = 0;
+        shell.TerminalFocusRequested += (_, _) => focusRequests++;
+
         await shell.InsertSnippetCommand.ExecuteAsync(row);
 
         snippets.Selected.ShouldBe(row, "the sidebar row picks the same selection INSERT reads");
+        focusRequests.ShouldBe(1, "the keyboard goes back to the terminal the command landed in");
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The other half of the rule above: nothing was typed, so nothing asks for the keyboard. A snip clicked
+    /// with no terminal to put it in lands on the snippets screen instead — see
+    /// <c>MainWindowViewModel.InsertSnippetCommand</c> — and stealing focus into a collapsed WebView on the
+    /// way would leave that screen unable to be typed on.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task InsertingASnippetWithNothingToInsertInto_DoesNotAskForTheTerminal()
+    {
+        await UnlockedAsync();
+
+        var snippets = shell.SnippetsScreen.ShouldNotBeNull();
+        await AddSnippetAsync(snippets, "uptime", "uptime", runs: false);
+
+        var row = snippets.Visible.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
+
+        var focusRequests = 0;
+        shell.TerminalFocusRequested += (_, _) => focusRequests++;
+
+        await shell.InsertSnippetCommand.ExecuteAsync(row);
+
+        shell.Screen.ShouldBe(ShellScreen.Snippets);
+        focusRequests.ShouldBe(0);
     }
 
     [Fact]
@@ -8112,6 +8318,7 @@ public sealed class ShellFlowTests : IAsyncLifetime
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
             new SshConnectionRequest("host.invalid", 22, "dodo", new SshPasswordCredential("irrelevant")),
             TerminalSize.Default,
+            progress: null,
             Token);
 
         shell.SignOutCommand.Execute(null);

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/KeyAuthenticationTests.cs

@@ -73,7 +73,8 @@ public sealed class KeyAuthenticationTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         var factory = new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts);
 
         await Should.ThrowAsync<SshAuthenticationException>(async () =>
-            await factory.ConnectAsync(Request(new SshPrivateKeyCredential(Pkcs1(stranger), null)), Token));
+            await factory.ConnectAsync(
+                Request(new SshPrivateKeyCredential(Pkcs1(stranger), null)), progress: null, Token));
     }
 
     [Fact]
@@ -125,6 +126,86 @@ public sealed class KeyAuthenticationTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         shell.IsOpen.ShouldBeTrue();
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The claim the connecting card is built on, checked where it can actually be checked: against a real
+    /// handshake rather than a fake that reports whatever it was written to report. Every other test of the
+    /// step list asserts that the shell draws what it is told; this one asserts that what it is told is
+    /// true.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The order is the assertion. A step list is only readable if the reports arrive in the order it draws
+    /// them, and the middle one is the load-bearing part — <see cref="SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey"/>
+    /// comes out of SSH.NET's <c>HostKeyReceived</c>, which is the single interior moment the library gives
+    /// anybody, and it has to land between the other two rather than beside them.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <see cref="SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell"/> is deliberately absent: this factory's work ends with
+    /// an authenticated connection, and the phase for opening a channel on one belongs to the layer that
+    /// opens it. <c>TerminalWorkspaceTests</c> covers that half.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task AHandshake_ReportsItsPhasesInTheOrderTheyHappen()
+    {
+        var knownHosts = await TrustedStoreAsync();
+        var reported = new List<SshConnectionPhase>();
+
+        await using var connection = await new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts).ConnectAsync(
+            Request(new SshPrivateKeyCredential(Pkcs1(fixture.ClientKey), Passphrase: null)),
+            new DelegateProgress<SshConnectionPhase>(phase =>
+            {
+                lock (reported)
+                {
+                    // Locked because the last two are reported from SSH.NET's own handshake thread rather
+                    // than from the awaiting one, which is the whole reason the shell marshals them.
+                    reported.Add(phase);
+                }
+            }),
+            Token);
+
+        connection.IsConnected.ShouldBeTrue();
+
+        lock (reported)
+        {
+            reported.ShouldBe(
+            [
+                SshConnectionPhase.Reaching,
+                SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey,
+                SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating,
+            ]);
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The other half of the phase contract, and the one that would be easy to get wrong by reporting
+    /// optimistically: a refused key stops at the check. Nothing may claim the credential was offered, and
+    /// against an unknown host nothing ever is — the gate returns false and SSH.NET abandons the handshake
+    /// before authentication.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task AHostKeyRefusal_NeverClaimsToHaveAuthenticated()
+    {
+        var reported = new List<SshConnectionPhase>();
+
+        await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
+            await new SshNetConnectionFactory(new InMemoryKnownHostStore()).ConnectAsync(
+                Request(new SshPasswordCredential(SshServerFixture.Password)),
+                new DelegateProgress<SshConnectionPhase>(phase =>
+                {
+                    lock (reported)
+                    {
+                        reported.Add(phase);
+                    }
+                }),
+                Token));
+
+        lock (reported)
+        {
+            reported.ShouldBe([SshConnectionPhase.Reaching, SshConnectionPhase.CheckingHostKey]);
+        }
+    }
+
     private static byte[] Pkcs1(RSA key) => Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key.ExportRSAPrivateKeyPem());
 
     private static byte[] Pkcs8(RSA key) => Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key.ExportPkcs8PrivateKeyPem());
@@ -141,7 +222,7 @@ public sealed class KeyAuthenticationTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         // Learned by being refused, which is the only way this client learns a host key.
         var unknown = await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
             await factory.ConnectAsync(
-                Request(new SshPasswordCredential(SshServerFixture.Password)), Token));
+                Request(new SshPasswordCredential(SshServerFixture.Password)), progress: null, Token));
 
         await knownHosts.TrustAsync(unknown.Presentation, Token);
 
@@ -153,6 +234,6 @@ public sealed class KeyAuthenticationTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         var knownHosts = await TrustedStoreAsync();
 
         return await new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts)
-            .ConnectAsync(Request(credential), Token);
+            .ConnectAsync(Request(credential), progress: null, Token);
     }
 }

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/KnownHostStoreTests.cs

@@ -137,3 +137,14 @@ public sealed class KnownHostStoreTests
         string fingerprint = "SHA256:approved") =>
         new(host, port, algorithm, fingerprint);
 }
+
+/// <summary>An <see cref="IProgress{T}"/> that runs its callback on the thread that reported.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <c>System.Progress&lt;T&gt;</c> posts to a captured synchronisation context, or to the thread pool when
+/// there is none — which is what a test has here — so a list it appended to would be asserted on before it
+/// had been written. The same reason the shell does not use it either; see <c>VaultViewModel.ReporterFor</c>.
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed class DelegateProgress<T>(Action<T> report) : IProgress<T>
+{
+    public void Report(T value) => report(value);
+}

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/LoopbackProxyTests.cs

@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ public sealed class LoopbackProxyTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         var factory = new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts);
 
         var unknown = await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
-            await factory.ConnectAsync(request, Token));
+            await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, Token));
 
         unknown.Presentation.Host.ShouldBe(InternalHost, "the target's name, not the proxy's");
         unknown.Presentation.Port.ShouldBe(SshServerFixture.InternalPort);
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ public sealed class LoopbackProxyTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
 
         await knownHosts.TrustAsync(unknown.Presentation, Token);
 
-        await using var connection = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, Token);
+        await using var connection = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, Token);
 
         connection.IsConnected.ShouldBeTrue();
         connection.HostKey.Host.ShouldBe(InternalHost);
@@ -121,7 +121,8 @@ public sealed class LoopbackProxyTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         var request = Request(Credential(), new SshLoopbackProxy(DeadPort()));
 
         var failure = await Should.ThrowAsync<Exception>(async () =>
-            await new SshNetConnectionFactory(new InMemoryKnownHostStore()).ConnectAsync(request, Token));
+            await new SshNetConnectionFactory(new InMemoryKnownHostStore())
+                .ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, Token));
 
         failure.ShouldNotBeOfType<SshHostKeyUnknownException>();
         failure.ShouldNotBeOfType<SshHostKeyMismatchException>();
@@ -137,7 +138,7 @@ public sealed class LoopbackProxyTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         var knownHosts = await TrustedStoreAsync();
 
         await using var connection = await new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts)
-            .ConnectAsync(Request(Credential(), proxy: null), Token);
+            .ConnectAsync(Request(Credential(), proxy: null), progress: null, Token);
 
         connection.IsConnected.ShouldBeTrue();
     }
@@ -216,7 +217,7 @@ public sealed class LoopbackProxyTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
 
         var unknown = await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
             await new SshNetConnectionFactory(knownHosts)
-                .ConnectAsync(Request(Credential(), proxy: null), Token));
+                .ConnectAsync(Request(Credential(), proxy: null), progress: null, Token));
 
         await knownHosts.TrustAsync(unknown.Presentation, Token);
 

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/PumpOverRealSshTests.cs

@@ -27,11 +27,11 @@ public sealed class PumpOverRealSshTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
             new SshPasswordCredential(SshServerFixture.Password));
 
         var unknown = await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
-            await factory.ConnectAsync(request, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken));
+            await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken));
 
         await knownHosts.TrustAsync(unknown.Presentation, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
-        return await factory.ConnectAsync(request, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+        return await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
     }
 
     [Fact]

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/SshServerFixture.cs

@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
+using System.Net.Sockets;
 using System.Security.Cryptography;
+using System.Text;
 using DotNet.Testcontainers.Builders;
 using DotNet.Testcontainers.Containers;
 using Xunit;
@@ -40,6 +42,21 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
 
     private const int SshPort = 2222;
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// How many connections in a row the server has to answer before this fixture calls it ready.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Twenty-five, and the number is measured rather than picked. Probing a fresh container 200 times with
+    /// penalties left at the image's default, the first <c>Not allowed at this time</c> came back at probe
+    /// 18 and 183 of the 200 were refused; with <c>PerSourcePenalties no</c> applied, none of 200 were. Ten
+    /// was tried first and is useless — it sits below the threshold, so the guard passed happily against a
+    /// server that was still penalising. See <see cref="WaitUntilServingAsync"/>.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private const int RequiredStreak = 25;
+
+    /// <summary>How long to keep trying before giving up on the server entirely.</summary>
+    private static readonly TimeSpan ReadyTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60);
+
     private readonly SemaphoreSlim sftpGate = new(1, 1);
 
     private IContainer? container;
@@ -80,101 +97,94 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
             .Build();
 
         await container.StartAsync();
-        await AllowTcpForwardingAsync();
+        await ReconfigureAsync();
+        await WaitUntilServingAsync();
     }
 
     /// <summary>
-    /// Lets this server open the direct-tcpip channels a forward is made of.
+    /// Turns off the hardening this suite trips over, and makes the running server re-read its config.
     /// </summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// <para>
-    /// ◆ <b>The image ships <c>AllowTcpForwarding no</c>, and nothing says so at the point it bites.</b> A
-    /// dynamic forward starts perfectly happily — it is a local listener, and opening it asks the server
-    /// nothing — and then every connection through it is refused when the channel is opened. SSH.NET
-    /// reports that as <c>SOCKS5: General failure</c> from the proxy, which names neither the server nor
-    /// the setting, and is what the first run of <c>LoopbackProxyTests</c> collected.
+    /// ◆ <b><c>PerSourcePenalties no</c> is the fix for the flake this suite had for months, and the other
+    /// two settings here are not.</b> OpenSSH 9.8 added per-source penalties and 10.x has them on by
+    /// default; this image runs 10.3. A source address that keeps disconnecting without authenticating is
+    /// penalised, and while the penalty holds every connection from it is answered with the clear-text line
+    /// <c>Not allowed at this time</c> and then closed.
     /// </para>
     /// <para>
-    /// Patched after start rather than baked in, because the image's entrypoint writes its configuration
-    /// itself on every boot — a mounted file would be overwritten before sshd read it. sshd re-reads on
-    /// <c>SIGHUP</c> and applies the result to connections made after that, and the readiness wait has
-    /// already run, so nothing here races the boot.
+    /// <b>This suite generates exactly that traffic, by design.</b> This client's first contact with an
+    /// unknown host is a connection deliberately refused at the host key — which is a disconnect with no
+    /// authentication attempt — and several tests do nothing else:
+    /// <c>RefusingTheHostKey_AbortsTheConnection</c>, <c>AnUntrustedHost_IsRefusedExactlyAsAShellWouldBe</c>,
+    /// and every helper that learns a host key by being turned away first. Enough of them close together and
+    /// sshd stops talking to the test host altogether, for a while, and then starts again.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// From the client that is <c>SshConnectionException: The connection was closed by the remote host</c>
+    /// within milliseconds — no banner, nothing to say which of the many reasons it was. It hits whichever
+    /// class is running when the penalty lands and spares the rest, which is why it read as random and why
+    /// the class it hit lost <em>every</em> connection it made rather than a random few. The one test in that
+    /// class that expects a refusal passed throughout, for the wrong reason.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// ◆ <b>Two earlier diagnoses were wrong, and are recorded here so they are not tried again.</b>
+    /// <c>MaxStartups</c> was blamed on the reasoning that xUnit runs test classes in parallel, so ten
+    /// unauthenticated connections would be in flight at once — but every class that touches this server
+    /// shares <see cref="SshCollection"/>, and xUnit's unit of parallelism is the collection, so they run one
+    /// after another and never have more than a connection or two open. The reload window was blamed next,
+    /// and a wait for the banner to answer was written and removed as unproven; it was unproven because the
+    /// banner does answer, right up until the penalty lands.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The line is appended rather than replaced in place, unlike the two below it, because the image's
+    /// config does not mention the keyword at all — there is no line to replace, and sshd takes the first
+    /// value it finds for a keyword that appears more than once.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// ◆ <b><c>AllowTcpForwarding</c> is what a dynamic forward needs</b>, and the image ships it off as
+    /// hardening. Without it a forward opens perfectly happily — a local listener asks the server nothing —
+    /// and then every connection through it is refused when the channel is opened. SSH.NET reports that as
+    /// <c>SOCKS5: General failure</c>, which names neither the server nor the setting, and is what the first
+    /// run of <c>LoopbackProxyTests</c> collected. That suite is also the alarm if this method ever silently
+    /// stops working.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <c>MaxStartups</c> is raised for the reason it should have been in the first place rather than as a
+    /// fix for anything: the compiled-in default refuses connections at random past ten unauthenticated ones
+    /// in flight, and a throttle is hardening a test server has no business reproducing. It is kept, not
+    /// because it was ever shown to matter here, but because removing it would be a second change riding
+    /// along with this one.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Both are replaced in place rather than appended, because sshd_config takes the <em>first</em> value
+    /// it finds for a keyword: an appended line would be dead the day the image ships an uncommented one of
+    /// its own.
     /// </para>
     /// <para>
     /// ◆ <b><c>/config/sshd/sshd_config</c>, and there are two.</b> The image also carries
-    /// <c>/etc/ssh/sshd_config</c>, which looks like the file to patch, reads identically, and is not the
-    /// one the running server was started with — patching it changes the text and nothing else, which is a
-    /// fix that appears to work and leaves the failure exactly where it was. Measured with <c>find</c>
-    /// rather than assumed, after the first version of this method did precisely that.
+    /// <c>/etc/ssh/sshd_config</c>, which looks like the file to patch, reads identically, and is not the one
+    /// the running server was started with — patching it changes the text and nothing else, which is a fix
+    /// that appears to work and leaves the failure exactly where it was.
     /// </para>
     /// <para>
-    /// It is on for the whole assembly rather than for the one test that needs it. Forwarding is off in
-    /// this image as hardening, not as a behaviour worth reproducing: nothing else here opens a channel of
-    /// any kind, so allowing it changes what exactly one suite can do and what none of the others see.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// ◆ <b><c>MaxStartups</c> is raised here too, against a flake this suite has and that this change is
-    /// a mitigation for rather than a proven cure.</b> The distinction is stated because the evidence
-    /// stops short of the claim, and a later reader deserves to know which.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// What is established: sshd's compiled-in default is <c>10:30:100</c> — past ten
-    /// <em>unauthenticated</em> connections in flight it refuses new ones at random, thirty percent of the
-    /// time, rising to always at a hundred — and the image ships the line commented out, so that default
-    /// was what ran. xUnit runs test classes in parallel and most classes here open a connection, so ten
-    /// in flight is reachable in the opening seconds. A refused connection presents to the client as
-    /// <c>SshConnectionException: The connection was closed by the remote host</c> within tens of
-    /// milliseconds, on whichever test connects at the wrong moment — which is exactly the observed
-    /// failure, seen in CI and reproduced locally.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// What is <em>not</em> established is that this limit is the only cause, because the flake rate could
-    /// not be measured reliably. On the development machine the identical unmodified suite ran 85/85 clean
-    /// and, an hour later, failed 13 runs out of 15 — Docker throughput on that host swings far enough to
-    /// swamp the effect being measured. Any before/after comparison taken there is noise, and two were,
-    /// before that was noticed.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// It is committed anyway, on the narrower argument that it is right regardless: a connection throttle
-    /// is hardening this suite has no interest in reproducing. It exists to test an SSH client, not to
-    /// survive a rate limit, and a test server that drops connections at random is a bad test server
-    /// whether or not it is the cause of this particular flake.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// <b>Not fixed by serialising the suite</b>, which would have hidden it and cost the parallelism, and
-    /// not by retrying the connect, which would have made the client's own reconnect behaviour untestable
-    /// by burying it in the fixture. The limit is a property of a hardened server that this suite has no
-    /// interest in reproducing — it exists to test an SSH client, not to survive a throttle.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// Replaced in place rather than appended, because sshd_config takes the <em>first</em> value it finds
-    /// for a keyword: an appended line would be dead the day the image ships an uncommented one of its own.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// ◆ <b>The reload window is the other candidate, and it is deliberately not guarded against.</b>
-    /// <c>SIGHUP</c> makes sshd close its listeners and re-execute itself, and <c>pkill</c> returns when
-    /// the signal is delivered rather than when that has finished — so in principle a connection made
-    /// immediately afterwards is refused, producing this same exception. A wait that opened connections
-    /// until the server answered with its banner three times running was written, and then removed: it
-    /// could not be shown to change anything either, and a fixture carrying two unproven fixes for one
-    /// symptom is worse than one, because the next person has to disprove both.
-    /// </para>
-    /// <para>
-    /// If this flake returns, that is the next thing to try. Two things to know before trying it: the two
-    /// causes are indistinguishable from the client, so a fix can only be judged by a repeat run and never
-    /// by whether the next run passes — and the repeat run has to happen somewhere with stable Docker
-    /// throughput, which the development machine is not. Better still, make sshd say why: raise its
-    /// <c>LogLevel</c> here, disable Ryuk so the container outlives the run, and read
-    /// <c>docker logs</c>. A <c>MaxStartups</c> refusal names itself there; a reload does not.
+    /// ◆ <b>Patched after boot and reloaded, rather than injected before it — which was tried and does not
+    /// work.</b> This image family runs <c>/custom-cont-init.d</c> scripts, which look like the right hook
+    /// and are not: the container's own log puts <c>sshd is listening on port 2222</c> <em>before</em>
+    /// <c>[custom-init] Files found, executing</c>, so a script there edits a file the running server has
+    /// already read. It leaves a config that greps correctly and a server behaving as though it had never
+    /// been touched — the same trap as the wrong file, one layer up. Measured from the log, after a version
+    /// of this fixture did exactly that and failed twenty-eight tests.
     /// </para>
     /// </remarks>
-    private async Task AllowTcpForwardingAsync()
+    private async Task ReconfigureAsync()
     {
         var result = await container!.ExecAsync([
             "sh",
             "-c",
             "sed -i 's/^AllowTcpForwarding no/AllowTcpForwarding yes/' /config/sshd/sshd_config"
                 + " && sed -i 's/^#*MaxStartups .*/MaxStartups 200/' /config/sshd/sshd_config"
+                + " && printf '\\nPerSourcePenalties no\\n' >> /config/sshd/sshd_config"
                 + " && pkill -HUP sshd",
         ]);
 
@@ -183,7 +193,107 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
             throw new InvalidOperationException(
                 $"Could not reconfigure the test server: {result.Stderr}");
         }
+    }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Blocks until the server answers <see cref="RequiredStreak"/> connections in a row with its banner.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// ◆ <b>This is a guard rather than a wait, and what it guards against is
+    /// <c>PerSourcePenalties</c> coming back.</b> Reconfiguring above turns it off; this proves it is off,
+    /// immediately and by name, instead of letting the suite discover it later as an unrelated-looking
+    /// failure in whichever class happened to be running.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>Consecutive, and deliberately with no pause between them.</b> Each probe opens a connection, reads
+    /// the identification string and disconnects without authenticating — which is exactly the shape of
+    /// connection <c>PerSourcePenalties</c> punishes, and exactly what this suite does all day: a first
+    /// contact with an unknown host is a connection this client deliberately refuses at the host key.
+    /// <see cref="RequiredStreak"/> back to back is therefore not a soak test, it is the specific
+    /// provocation, sized above the measured threshold on purpose, and it costs well under a second when the
+    /// setting is off.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// It is also the one check that can tell a listening socket from a running server. The container's own
+    /// readiness — a log line and <c>netstat</c> showing <c>:2222</c> — passes on a container whose sshd has
+    /// gone: the socket is published by a host-side proxy that accepts before it has anything to forward to,
+    /// so a dead server presents as a connection accepted and closed rather than as one refused.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Probed from the host rather than with <c>docker exec</c>, deliberately: that is the path the tests
+    /// take, proxy included, and penalties are counted per source address — from inside the container the
+    /// source would be the loopback rather than the address every test connects from.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private async Task WaitUntilServingAsync()
+    {
+        // TimeProvider.System rather than DateTimeOffset.UtcNow, which this repository bans so that time can
+        // be faked — and rather than a fake, because what is being waited on is a real container starting.
+        var deadline = TimeProvider.System.GetUtcNow() + ReadyTimeout;
+        var streak = 0;
+        var last = "no probe ran";
+
+        while (streak < RequiredStreak)
+        {
+            if (TimeProvider.System.GetUtcNow() >= deadline)
+            {
+                throw new InvalidOperationException(
+                    $"The test server did not answer {RequiredStreak} connections in a row within "
+                    + $"{ReadyTimeout}. The last probe said: {last}. If it says \"Not allowed at this "
+                    + "time\", sshd is penalising this source address and PerSourcePenalties is no longer "
+                    + "being turned off — see ReconfigureAsync.");
+            }
+
+            var (answered, what) = await ProbeAsync();
+            last = what;
+
+            if (answered)
+            {
+                streak++;
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            // Only pause when it is not working. Back-to-back probes are the point while they succeed;
+            // hammering a server that has not finished starting is just noise.
+            streak = 0;
+            await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(200));
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>Opens a socket and reads far enough to see OpenSSH's identification string.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The description comes back with the answer because the interesting failures are not exceptions. A
+    /// penalised source is told <c>Not allowed at this time</c> in clear text before the socket closes, and
+    /// a suite that only knew "no banner" would have to go and find that out again — which is what happened
+    /// the first time, at some length.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private async Task<(bool Answered, string What)> ProbeAsync()
+    {
+        try
+        {
+            using var probe = new TcpClient();
+            using var timeout = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
+
+            await probe.ConnectAsync(Host, Port, timeout.Token);
+
+            var buffer = new byte[64];
+            var read = await probe.GetStream().ReadAtLeastAsync(
+                buffer, 4, throwOnEndOfStream: false, timeout.Token);
+
+            var answered = read >= 4 && "SSH-"u8.SequenceEqual(buffer.AsSpan(0, 4));
+
+            return (
+                answered,
+                answered
+                    ? "SSH-"
+                    : $"{read} bytes: "
+                        + Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer, 0, Math.Max(read, 0)).ReplaceLineEndings(" "));
+        }
+        catch (Exception exception) when (exception is SocketException or OperationCanceledException or IOException)
+        {
+            return (false, $"{exception.GetType().Name}: {exception.Message}");
+        }
     }
 
     /// <summary>
@@ -225,12 +335,17 @@ public sealed class SshServerFixture : IAsyncLifetime
     /// </summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// <para>
-    /// Shared rather than opened per test, and that is a limit of the server rather than an optimisation.
-    /// sshd's <c>MaxStartups</c> drops connections at random once enough are part-way through a handshake,
-    /// and this client's first contact with an unknown host is a connection deliberately <em>refused</em> at
-    /// the host key — so a suite that opened its own session per test made two handshakes per test and
-    /// pushed the whole assembly over the threshold. What that looks like is unrelated tests failing with
-    /// "the connection was closed by the remote host", a different few each run.
+    /// Shared rather than opened per test. This was once explained as a way of staying under the server's
+    /// <c>MaxStartups</c> throttle, on the belief that the suite ran its classes in parallel and made two
+    /// handshakes per test — this client's first contact with an unknown host is a connection deliberately
+    /// <em>refused</em> at the host key, so every session costs two. The parallelism was not real: every
+    /// class here shares one collection and xUnit runs collections, not classes, in parallel. See
+    /// <see cref="WaitUntilServingAsync"/>, which is where that mistake was found and what the failure it
+    /// was blamed for turned out to be.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// It stays shared regardless, on the plainer argument: one session is enough, and a handshake per test
+    /// would be seconds of the suite's runtime spent proving nothing this file has not already proved.
     /// </para>
     /// <para>
     /// Safe to share because an SFTP session holds no per-test state: every test here works in a directory

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Ssh.Tests/TerminalEndToEndTests.cs

@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalEndToEndTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
 
         var unknown = await Should.ThrowAsync<SshHostKeyUnknownException>(async () =>
             await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-                request, TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken));
+                request, TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken));
 
         unknown.Presentation.Fingerprint.ShouldStartWith(SshHostKeyFingerprint.Prefix);
 
@@ -119,6 +119,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalEndToEndTests(SshServerFixture fixture)
         return await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
             request,
             new TerminalSize(100, 30, 1000, 750),
+            progress: null,
             TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
     }
 

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Terminal.Tests/FakeShellSession.cs

@@ -139,8 +139,15 @@ internal sealed class FakeConnectionFactory(long bytesPerShell = long.MaxValue,
     /// <inheritdoc />
     public Task<ISshConnection> ConnectAsync(
         SshConnectionRequest request,
+        IProgress<SshConnectionPhase>? progress,
         CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
+        // The real factory's own order, so that a test watching this fake is watching the same sequence a
+        // real handshake produces. It cannot report CheckingHostKey — there is no key exchange here to
+        // produce a key — and inventing one would make this the only place that phase came from.
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Reaching);
+        progress?.Report(SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating);
+
         var connection = new FakeConnection(request, bytesPerShell, blockShellReads);
         Connections.Add(connection);
 
@@ -250,3 +257,15 @@ internal sealed class RecordingTransport : ITerminalTransport
             TerminalFrame.TryRead(frame, out var actual, out _, out _)
             && actual == (byte)opcode);
 }
+
+/// <summary>An <see cref="IProgress{T}"/> that runs its callback on the thread that reported.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <c>System.Progress&lt;T&gt;</c> would post to a captured synchronisation context, or to the thread pool
+/// when there is none — which is what a test has here — so a list it appended to would be asserted on before
+/// it had been written. This is the same reason the shell does not use it either; see
+/// <c>VaultViewModel.ReporterFor</c>.
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed class DelegateProgress<T>(Action<T> report) : IProgress<T>
+{
+    public void Report(T value) => report(value);
+}

tests/DodoSSH.Client.Terminal.Tests/TerminalWorkspaceTests.cs

@@ -72,12 +72,12 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         workspace.LiveSessionCount.ShouldBe(0);
 
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         workspace.LiveSessionCount.ShouldBe(1);
 
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         workspace.LiveSessionCount.ShouldBe(2);
     }
@@ -98,11 +98,63 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await WaitUntilAsync(() => workspace.LiveSessionCount == 0);
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <see cref="SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell"/> is the one phase no connection factory can report,
+    /// because by the time it happens the factory has handed back a connection and gone. If this layer did
+    /// not report it the card's last step would light only when the whole session opened, which is the one
+    /// moment the card is already being taken down — a step nobody would ever see lit.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Asserted as the whole sequence rather than as "contains OpeningShell", because the order is the part
+    /// that matters: a step list is only readable if what it is told arrives in the order it draws.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task OpeningASession_ReportsTheShellPhaseTheFactoryCannot()
+    {
+        var connections = new FakeConnectionFactory();
+        var reported = new List<SshConnectionPhase>();
+
+        await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
+
+        await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
+            Request(),
+            TerminalSize.Default,
+            new DelegateProgress<SshConnectionPhase>(reported.Add),
+            TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+
+        reported.ShouldBe(
+        [
+            SshConnectionPhase.Reaching,
+            SshConnectionPhase.Authenticating,
+            SshConnectionPhase.OpeningShell,
+        ],
+        "the factory's own phases, then the one this layer performs itself");
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Nobody watching is the ordinary case — every caller but the connecting card passes null — so it is
+    /// worth one test that the null is a null and not a null reference.
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task OpeningASession_WorksWithNobodyWatchingItsPhases()
+    {
+        var connections = new FakeConnectionFactory();
+
+        await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
+
+        var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+
+        workspace.IsSessionLive(sessionId).ShouldBeTrue();
+    }
+
     [Fact]
     public async Task ClosingASessionEndsItAndDisposesItsConnection()
     {
@@ -111,7 +163,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await workspace.CloseSessionAsync(sessionId);
 
@@ -138,9 +190,9 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         var first = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
         var second = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         workspace.IsSessionLive(first).ShouldBeTrue();
         workspace.IsSessionLive(second).ShouldBeTrue();
@@ -166,7 +218,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         var facts = workspace.GetSessionFacts(sessionId).ShouldNotBeNull();
         var connection = connections.Connections.ShouldHaveSingleItem();
@@ -199,7 +251,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         (await workspace.PasteAsync(
             sessionId, "uptime", execute: false, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken))
@@ -245,7 +297,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         };
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await WaitUntilAsync(() =>
         {
@@ -283,7 +335,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         };
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await workspace.CloseSessionAsync(sessionId);
 
@@ -309,9 +361,9 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         workspace.SessionEnded += (_, _) => Interlocked.Increment(ref announcements);
 
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
         await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await workspace.DisposeAsync();
 
@@ -355,7 +407,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         using var first = await ConnectRendererAsync(workspace);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         // The session's own opening frame, sent as soon as the pump starts running. Not a replay, and not
         // what this test is about — read and discarded so it cannot be confused for one below.
@@ -422,7 +474,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(connections);
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         // The up-arrow, as a PTY expects it. Three bytes, and all three matter.
         byte[] upArrow = [0x1B, (byte)'[', (byte)'A'];
@@ -444,7 +496,7 @@ public sealed class TerminalWorkspaceTests
         await using var workspace = CreateWorkspace(new FakeConnectionFactory());
 
         var sessionId = await workspace.OpenSessionAsync(
-            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
+            Request(), TerminalSize.Default, progress: null, TestContext.Current.CancellationToken);
 
         await workspace.CloseSessionAsync(sessionId);
 

tests/DodoSSH.SystemTests/M1VerticalSliceTests.cs

@@ -391,7 +391,7 @@ public sealed class M1VerticalSliceTests(DevStack stack) : IClassFixture<DevStac
 
         try
         {
-            await using var first = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, Token);
+            await using var first = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, Token);
             Assert.Fail("An unseen host key must not be trusted silently.");
         }
         catch (SshHostKeyUnknownException exception)
@@ -402,7 +402,7 @@ public sealed class M1VerticalSliceTests(DevStack stack) : IClassFixture<DevStac
             await knownHosts.TrustAsync(pin, Token);
         }
 
-        await using var connection = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, Token);
+        await using var connection = await factory.ConnectAsync(request, progress: null, Token);
         await using var shell = await connection.OpenShellAsync(TerminalSize.Default, Token);
 
         await shell.WriteTextAsync("echo dodossh-e2e-ok\n", Token);