So, I have tried to overlook this little annoyance, thinking it's a matter of taste, but now it has become too disruptive in my workflow, and I believe requires some attention.

There are two issues with the retype build command (and possibly others - if it matters, I can test further).

Annoyance

The fact that the command clears the screen is highly unusual (at least in a linux terminal). I know of no other tool that does that, and even if there is - for each one, there are a hundred that don't do it. I think this behavior should be removed. Just print status to screen, plain and simple. Colors are ok, Unicode icons are somewhat ok, but don't take over my screen, please.

Bug

I am not sure if you can reproduce it or not, but for me this reproduces consistently. It might be related to the first issue.

It seems like you are sending another control signal to the terminal (perhaps the same clear signal does that?). This signal removes a certain configuration I have in my terminal.

I have the following snippet in my ~/.inputrc file:

# Change up/down arrows behavior
"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward

This makes it so typing a partial command, and then using up arrow, causes the terminal to look in the history for the latest matching command.

After running retype build - this functionality is removed. I have to shut the terminal and reopen it if I want to have the functionality again.

I have tried reproducing it using an easier method for your benefit, but without success.

I am using Ubuntu 18 in a Vagrant guest on a Windows 10 host, and using PuTTY as the terminal software, but I suspect it can be reproduced in a less specific setup.