perf(tui): defer agent construction until first prompt

Match classic CLI perceived startup behavior: show the TUI shell and composer
before constructing the full AIAgent. session.create now returns a lightweight
placeholder session with lazy=true and no longer starts _make_agent eagerly.
The first method that needs the agent triggers _start_agent_build() via _sess();
prompt.submit is routed through the RPC worker pool so that the initial wait for
agent construction does not block the stdio dispatcher.

The intro panel renders skeleton rows for tools/skills while the real
session.info payload is absent, then hydrates to the real tools/skills panel once
AIAgent initialization completes. Also skip the startup /voice status probe and
avoid the input.detect_drop RPC for ordinary plain-text prompts to keep early
startup/first-submit paths cheap.

Measurements on macOS Terminal.app:
- Previous full ready p50 after earlier PR commits: ~1537ms
- Lazy skeleton panel p50: ~794ms
- Original baseline full ready p50: ~1843ms

So the visible startup surface is now ~743ms faster than the prior PR state and
~1.05s faster than the original baseline. First prompt still pays the same agent
construction cost if it races the background/skeleton state, matching classic
CLI's deferred behavior.

Tests:
- python -m py_compile tui_gateway/server.py
- cd ui-tui && npm run type-check && npm run build
- scripts/run_tests.sh tests/tui_gateway/test_protocol.py::test_sess_found tests/tools/test_code_execution_modes.py tests/tools/test_code_execution.py
- cd ui-tui && npm test -- --run src/__tests__/useSessionLifecycle.test.ts src/__tests__/useConfigSync.test.ts

ui-tui/src/app/useConfigSync.ts

@@ -5,8 +5,7 @@ import type { GatewayClient } from '../gatewayClient.js'
 import type {
   ConfigFullResponse,
   ConfigMtimeResponse,
-  ReloadMcpResponse,
-  VoiceToggleResponse
+  ReloadMcpResponse
 } from '../gatewayTypes.js'
 import { asRpcResult } from '../lib/rpc.js'
 
@@ -105,7 +104,11 @@ export function useConfigSync({ gw, setBellOnComplete, setVoiceEnabled, sid }: U
       return
     }
 
-    quietRpc<VoiceToggleResponse>(gw, 'voice.toggle', { action: 'status' }).then(r => setVoiceEnabled(!!r?.enabled))
+    // Keep startup cheap: voice.toggle status probes optional audio/STT deps and
+    // can run long enough to delay prompt.submit on the single stdio RPC pipe.
+    // Environment flags are enough to initialize the UI bit; the heavier status
+    // check still runs when the user opens /voice.
+    setVoiceEnabled(process.env.HERMES_VOICE === '1')
     quietRpc<ConfigMtimeResponse>(gw, 'config.get', { key: 'mtime' }).then(r => {
       mtimeRef.current = Number(r?.mtime ?? 0)
     })

ui-tui/src/app/useSubmission.ts

@@ -126,6 +126,13 @@ export function useSubmission(opts: UseSubmissionOptions) {
         return sys('session not ready yet')
       }
 
+      // Plain prompts are the common path and should not pay an extra RPC
+      // before prompt.submit. File-drop detection can still run for inputs
+      // that contain an absolute/tilde path or file:// URI.
+      if (!looksLikeSlashCommand(text) && !/(?:^|\s)(?:file:\/\/|~\/|\/)[^\s]+/.test(text)) {
+        return startSubmit(text, expand(text), showUserMessage)
+      }
+
       gw.request<InputDetectDropResponse>('input.detect_drop', { session_id: sid, text })
         .then(r => {
           if (!r?.matched) {

ui-tui/src/components/appLayout.tsx

@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ const TranscriptPane = memo(function TranscriptPane({
                 <Box flexDirection="column" paddingTop={1}>
                   <Banner t={ui.theme} />
 
-                  {row.msg.info?.version && <SessionPanel info={row.msg.info} sid={ui.sid} t={ui.theme} />}
+                  {row.msg.info && <SessionPanel info={row.msg.info} sid={ui.sid} t={ui.theme} />}
                 </Box>
               ) : row.msg.kind === 'panel' && row.msg.panelData ? (
                 <Panel sections={row.msg.panelData.sections} t={ui.theme} title={row.msg.panelData.title} />

ui-tui/src/components/branding.tsx

@@ -64,9 +64,11 @@ export function SessionPanel({ info, sid, t }: SessionPanelProps) {
   }
 
   const section = (title: string, data: Record<string, string[]>, max = 8, overflowLabel = 'more…') => {
+    const skeletonRows = title === 'Tools' ? ['browser', 'terminal', 'file'] : ['apple', 'creative', 'software-development']
     const entries = Object.entries(data).sort()
     const shown = entries.slice(0, max)
     const overflow = entries.length - max
+    const skeleton = info.lazy && entries.length === 0
 
     return (
       <Box flexDirection="column" marginTop={1}>
@@ -74,12 +76,19 @@ export function SessionPanel({ info, sid, t }: SessionPanelProps) {
           Available {title}
         </Text>
 
-        {shown.map(([k, vs]) => (
-          <Text key={k} wrap="truncate">
-            <Text color={t.color.muted}>{strip(k)}: </Text>
-            <Text color={t.color.text}>{truncLine(strip(k) + ': ', vs)}</Text>
-          </Text>
-        ))}
+        {skeleton
+          ? skeletonRows.map(k => (
+              <Text dimColor key={k} wrap="truncate">
+                <Text color={t.color.muted}>{k}: </Text>
+                <Text color={t.color.text}>━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</Text>
+              </Text>
+            ))
+          : shown.map(([k, vs]) => (
+              <Text key={k} wrap="truncate">
+                <Text color={t.color.muted}>{strip(k)}: </Text>
+                <Text color={t.color.text}>{truncLine(strip(k) + ': ', vs)}</Text>
+              </Text>
+            ))}
 
         {overflow > 0 && (
           <Text color={t.color.muted}>

ui-tui/src/types.ts

@@ -143,11 +143,12 @@ export interface McpServerStatus {
 export interface SessionInfo {
   cwd?: string
   fast?: boolean
+  lazy?: boolean
   mcp_servers?: McpServerStatus[]
   model: string
   reasoning_effort?: string
-  service_tier?: string
   release_date?: string
+  service_tier?: string
   skills: Record<string, string[]>
   tools: Record<string, string[]>
   update_behind?: number | null