On 2026-07-25 the PC appeared frozen and needed an SSH rescue. Three defects
stacked:
1. DP-0 came up `connected` with a valid EDID and no mode/CRTC -- physically
dark, while X still reserved its 3840px slice of the root window.
2. diet-guard-gate and workout-locker each mapped an override-redirect window
spanning the WHOLE root (6400x1440+0+0), centring their controls on the
primary output -- the dark one. The escape UI was invisible.
3. They deadlocked on the X grab, and the loser logged "another app -- e.g. a
fullscreen game -- holds it". No game was running; the holder was the other
locker. That guess sent the diagnosis the wrong way for the whole outage.
The library had no concept of an individual output: setup() sized the window
from winfo_screenwidth(), the union bounding box of every output.
What changes:
* _outputs.py An output is LIVE only if connected AND has a mode/CRTC.
RandR (crtc==0 or mode==0) and an xrandr --query parser derive
that predicate independently; verified to agree exactly on the
real DP-0/HDMI-0 layout. Fails closed three distinct ways.
* _surfaces.py One window per live output at its own geometry, and the only
module allowed to create/move/destroy windows. Explicit
geometry replaces attributes(fullscreen=True), which an
override-redirect window is invisible to anyway.
* _detect.py RandR events + Tk <Configure> + xrandr polling, coalesced. The
RandR thread runs on a private X connection and may only call
queue.put -- Tk is not thread-safe.
* _recovery.py Re-asserts coverage, placement, grab and VT on a timer. Proven
monotonic: it may only ADD coverage or RE-ACQUIRE the grab. An
ast test asserts the file contains none of grab_release /
restore_vt_switching / close / destroy / quit / withdraw, while
disable_vt_switching and grab_set_global ARE present. Yanking
every cable therefore does not unlock anything.
* _arbiter.py N-app priority: wake_alarm > screen_locker > diet_guard.
Liveness is proved by flock-on-death -- no heartbeat, no PID
scan, no clock. A two-axis strength check stops rank ever
weakening the lock: an app stands down only for an incumbent
at least as strong on BOTH grab kind and VT disabling.
* _guards.py wait_for_x_server replaces wait_for_display and gates ONLY on
an X server existing. Output count must never gate arming:
zero live outputs means lock without showing, not decline to
lock. That inversion is what left the machine unlocked.
* _window.py Arms first, renders second. Names the real grab holder instead
of blaming a fullscreen game. Releases the arbiter on close so
the alarm -> workout handoff cannot strand the next app.
Two bugs found by running it, not reading it:
* acquire_holder() opened the holder file "w", which truncates at open() --
before the lock attempt. A losing contender erased the incumbent's claim, so
the app that most needed to know who held the screen found an empty file.
* tk.Toplevel over a MagicMock sends real tkinter into infinite mock recursion;
the suite hung instead of failing, and an unpatched setup() would have run
setxkbmap against the developer's own machine. conftest now has an autouse
hermetic fixture; the suite went from >120s to 0.7s.
235 tests, 100% branch coverage, ruff (select=ALL) and mypy --strict clean.
No suppressions added: Protocols replace Any for python-xlib, public attribute
access replaces ._data, and type-only Protocols live under TYPE_CHECKING.
Consumers still pin gatelock-v0.1.1 and are unmigrated; nothing ships until a
tag and a reinstall into system python.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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| .github/workflows | ||
| gatelock | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .pre-commit-config.yaml | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| pyproject.toml | ||
| README.md | ||
| requirements.txt | ||
gatelock
Shared fullscreen lock-window + HMAC log-integrity backend, extracted from three personal automation tools that each independently implemented "lock the screen with a blocking overlay until a condition is met": diet_guard, wake_alarm, and screen-locker.
Why
All three reimplemented the same tkinter fullscreen mechanics (overrideredirect,
input grab, VT-switch disable) at different levels of maturity, and the
HMAC-signed-state module had already been hand-copied between two of them
because they live in separate repos. gatelock is the one place that logic
now lives.
Install
pip install "gatelock @ git+https://github.com/kuhyx/utils@gatelock-v0.1.1#subdirectory=gatelock"
Usage
import tkinter as tk
from gatelock import GateRoot, LockConfig, LockWindow
class MyGate:
def __init__(self, *, demo_mode: bool) -> None:
self.root = GateRoot()
self.root.on_callback_error = self._handle_callback_error
config = LockConfig(mode="soft" if demo_mode else "hard")
self._lock = LockWindow(self.root, config, hooks=self)
self._lock.setup()
# ... build your widgets ...
self._lock.grab_input()
def on_focus_ready(self) -> None:
self.my_entry.focus_force()
def on_callback_error(self) -> None:
self.close()
def on_close(self) -> None:
... # release any hardware/state held while locked
def close(self) -> None:
self._lock.close()
def run(self) -> None:
self._lock.run()
LockConfig's mode preset bundles the common combination ("soft" = topmost
only, typeable, WM-escapable; "hard" = overrideredirect + global grab +
VT-disable). Each axis (overrideredirect, grab, disable_vt,
grab_retry_ms) can be set explicitly to reproduce a consumer's exact prior
behavior where it diverges from the preset.
gatelock.log_integrity ports the HMAC-signed state module used by all three
projects; DEFAULT_HMAC_KEY_FILE (/etc/workout-locker/hmac.key) is
unchanged so existing signed history keeps verifying.
Development
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
pytest
pre-commit install && pre-commit install --hook-type pre-push