From 8848e98271fc4b3c6b4f76796fd47db00a10b683 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mitchell Hashimoto <m@mitchellh.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2025 10:07:21 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] terminal: search thread boilerplate (does nothing)

---
 src/terminal/search.zig        |  1 +
 src/terminal/search/Thread.zig | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 64 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 src/terminal/search/Thread.zig

diff --git a/src/terminal/search.zig b/src/terminal/search.zig
index a043973ff..6782f3e10 100644
--- a/src/terminal/search.zig
+++ b/src/terminal/search.zig
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 //! Search functionality for the terminal.
 
 pub const PageList = @import("search/pagelist.zig").PageListSearch;
+pub const Thread = @import("search/Thread.zig");
 
 test {
     @import("std").testing.refAllDecls(@This());
diff --git a/src/terminal/search/Thread.zig b/src/terminal/search/Thread.zig
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b9f98a9dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/terminal/search/Thread.zig
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+//! Search thread that handles searching a terminal for a string match.
+//! This is expected to run on a dedicated thread to try to prevent too much
+//! overhead to other terminal read/write operations.
+//!
+//! The current architecture of search does acquire global locks for accessing
+//! terminal data, so there's still added contention, but we do our best to
+//! minimize this by trading off memory usage (copying data to minimize lock
+//! time).
+pub const Thread = @This();
+
+const std = @import("std");
+const Allocator = std.mem.Allocator;
+const BlockingQueue = @import("../../datastruct/main.zig").BlockingQueue;
+
+const log = std.log.scoped(.search_thread);
+
+/// Allocator used for some state
+alloc: std.mem.Allocator,
+
+/// The mailbox that can be used to send this thread messages. Note
+/// this is a blocking queue so if it is full you will get errors (or block).
+mailbox: *Mailbox,
+
+/// Initialize the thread. This does not START the thread. This only sets
+/// up all the internal state necessary prior to starting the thread. It
+/// is up to the caller to start the thread with the threadMain entrypoint.
+pub fn init(alloc: Allocator) Thread {
+    // The mailbox for messaging this thread
+    var mailbox = try Mailbox.create(alloc);
+    errdefer mailbox.destroy(alloc);
+
+    return .{
+        .alloc = alloc,
+        .mailbox = mailbox,
+    };
+}
+
+/// Clean up the thread. This is only safe to call once the thread
+/// completes executing; the caller must join prior to this.
+pub fn deinit(self: *Thread) void {
+    // Nothing can possibly access the mailbox anymore, destroy it.
+    self.mailbox.destroy(self.alloc);
+}
+
+/// The main entrypoint for the thread.
+pub fn threadMain(self: *Thread) void {
+    // Call child function so we can use errors...
+    self.threadMain_() catch |err| {
+        // In the future, we should expose this on the thread struct.
+        log.warn("search thread err={}", .{err});
+    };
+}
+
+fn threadMain_(self: *Thread) !void {
+    defer log.debug("search thread exited", .{});
+    _ = self;
+}
+
+/// The type used for sending messages to the thread.
+pub const Mailbox = BlockingQueue(Message, 64);
+
+/// The messages that can be sent to the thread.
+pub const Message = union(enum) {};