diff --git a/web/src/components/terminal/TerminalPanel.tsx b/web/src/components/terminal/TerminalPanel.tsx
index 94ca9be..0d411d1 100644
--- a/web/src/components/terminal/TerminalPanel.tsx
+++ b/web/src/components/terminal/TerminalPanel.tsx
@@ -38,6 +38,12 @@ export function TerminalPanel({ workspaceId }: TerminalPanelProps) {
       terminal = new Terminal({
         cursorBlink: true,
         convertEol: true,
+        // Prevent Mac Option+key from emitting ESC. Without this, typing
+        // Option+[ etc. leaks a literal 0x1b into the shell's stdin, which
+        // can break downstream programs that don't interpret escape
+        // sequences (e.g. Python's REPL reports "invalid non-printable
+        // character U+001B").
+        macOptionIsMeta: false,
         fontFamily:
           'Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", "Courier New", monospace',
         fontSize: 12,
@@ -102,6 +108,10 @@ export function TerminalPanel({ workspaceId }: TerminalPanelProps) {
     hasWelcomedRef.current = false;
     isDeadRef.current = false;
     setIsDead(false);
+    // Clear the previous workspace's scrollback so the user does not see
+    // shell output from another workspace in the new one.
+    terminal.clear();
+    terminal.reset();
 
     const removeInputHandler = terminal.onData((input) => {
       if (!isDeadRef.current) {