diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9347d15d..f3afe7b8 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -165,6 +165,17 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   the same hierarchy `App::new` uses (`.agents/skills` →
   `skills` → `~/.deepseek/skills`). Available in Plan and
   Agent/Yolo modes.
+- **Kitty keyboard protocol opt-in** (#442) — pushes
+  `DISAMBIGUATE_ESCAPE_CODES` at startup so terminals that
+  support the protocol (Kitty, Ghostty, Alacritty 0.13+,
+  WezTerm, recent Konsole / xterm) report unambiguous events
+  for Option/Alt-modified keys, plain Esc, and multi-byte
+  sequences. Legacy terminals silently discard the escape and
+  see no change. Only the disambiguation tier is pushed —
+  release-event reporting was deliberately skipped because the
+  existing handlers would mis-route releases as duplicate
+  presses. The flags are popped on shutdown / panic / suspend
+  paths (#443).
 - **RLM tool family** (#512) — `rlm` tool cards map to
   `ToolFamily::Rlm` and render `rlm`, not `swarm`. Stale "swarm"
   wording cleaned out of docs / comments / tests.
diff --git a/crates/tui/src/tui/ui.rs b/crates/tui/src/tui/ui.rs
index eed3a6b3..2782229b 100644
--- a/crates/tui/src/tui/ui.rs
+++ b/crates/tui/src/tui/ui.rs
@@ -180,6 +180,31 @@ pub async fn run_tui(config: &Config, options: TuiOptions) -> Result<()> {
     if use_bracketed_paste {
         execute!(stdout, EnableBracketedPaste)?;
     }
+    // #442: opt into the Kitty keyboard protocol's escape-code
+    // disambiguation so terminals that support it (Kitty, Ghostty,
+    // Alacritty 0.13+, WezTerm, recent Konsole, recent xterm) report
+    // unambiguous events for Option/Alt-modified keys, plain Esc, and
+    // multi-byte sequences. Terminals that don't recognise the escape
+    // silently discard it; behaviour is identical to today on legacy
+    // terminals (iTerm2, Terminal.app, Windows 10 conhost).
+    //
+    // Only `DISAMBIGUATE_ESCAPE_CODES` is pushed — the higher tiers
+    // (`REPORT_EVENT_TYPES`, `REPORT_ALL_KEYS_AS_ESCAPE_CODES`) emit
+    // release events that the existing key handlers would mis-route
+    // as duplicate presses. Best-effort: failure to push is logged
+    // and ignored so a quirky terminal can't block startup.
+    if let Err(err) = execute!(
+        stdout,
+        crossterm::event::PushKeyboardEnhancementFlags(
+            crossterm::event::KeyboardEnhancementFlags::DISAMBIGUATE_ESCAPE_CODES
+        )
+    ) {
+        tracing::debug!(
+            target: "kitty_keyboard",
+            ?err,
+            "PushKeyboardEnhancementFlags ignored (terminal lacks support)"
+        );
+    }
     let backend = CrosstermBackend::new(stdout);
     let mut terminal = Terminal::new(backend)?;
     let event_broker = EventBroker::new();