The device chat can read your Shell's screen, if you let it
Ask the device chat about the dialog or error on your own open Shell and it reads the screen instead of guessing. It's off until an admin or master switches it on, because a root shell's screen goes to your AI provider. Shell recordings are now kept for a year unless you choose another period.
Earlier today an apt upgrade on one of our machines stopped at a keyboard question in the Shell, and we asked the device chat what to pick. The chat couldn't see the Shell. It guessed at the question twice and was wrong twice, until we pasted the screen in.
From today the chat can read it. Ask about a machine while your own Shell on it is open, or within half an hour of closing it, and the chat reads what the screen shows: the output of your last commands, an error, or a dialog waiting for an answer. We asked it about the keyboard question again on a test machine. It named the dialog, said to choose English (UK), and said it couldn't tell which line was highlighted, so check before pressing Enter.
An answer that read your screen says so, and its "Based on" row lists "Shell screen".
Off until you switch it on
A root shell's screen shows whatever the machine holds, a configuration file with a password in it included, and reading it means sending that text to your AI provider. So the switch is off for every tenant until an admin or master turns it on, under Settings, Privacy & Data, "Let the device chat read the screen of your own Shell session".
The chat reads only your own Shell, on the machine you're asking about. A colleague's session is out of its reach, and the background analyses, the triage of tickets and the investigations don't get it at all. Whatever the screen says, the chat treats it as evidence about the machine. A line on screen telling it to do something is text, and anything the chat can change still waits for you to tick it.
How long recordings are kept
Shell sessions are recorded from agent 0.3.118 on, which reaches your machines a day after ours. The recordings are kept for a year unless you choose another period on the same page: 30, 90 or 180 days, or one, two or three years. A shorter period deletes the older recordings the next morning.
The record of each session stays whatever you choose: who opened it, when, from where and how it ended. Only what the screen showed is deleted, and the session's page says why its replay is gone.
Your data export now includes your remote sessions and the Shell recordings you still keep.