Run /keys in the console to print this map live, grounded in the actual keymap.
The console's keyboard shortcuts are fixed, not user-configurable: each raw key event is classified by the pure keymap in src/console/input/keymap.ts (readKey) into a console intent, and the surface's input handler (src/console/components/TerminalConsole.tsx) maps that intent to an effect. There is no keybindings.json file. The live /keys command renders the same map from the HOTKEYS table in src/console/slash/commands/workbench.ts.
Table of Contents
Editing and navigation
| Key |
Action |
Left / Right |
Move the caret one column |
Up / Down |
Recall older / newer history (or move the completion highlight when one is open) |
Ctrl+A |
Jump to the start of the line |
Ctrl+E |
Jump to the end of the line |
Page Up |
Jump to buffer start |
Page Down |
Jump to buffer end |
Backspace |
Delete the character before the caret |
Ctrl+U |
Clear the composer line |
Ctrl+J |
Insert a newline |
Shift+Enter |
Insert a soft newline |
Submitting and flow
| Key |
Action |
Enter |
Submit the current turn |
Esc |
Dismiss an open overlay; otherwise abort the in-flight turn; otherwise clear the completion highlight |
Ctrl+C |
Abort a running turn; else clear the composer; a second press on an already-empty buffer within ~500 ms exits |
Ctrl+Z |
Suspend the process to the background (job control) |
Ctrl+G |
Hand the composer buffer to your external editor ($VISUAL, then $EDITOR, then vi) and read it back |
Ctrl+V |
Attach an image from the clipboard (macOS / Linux) |
Completion
| Key |
Action |
Tab |
Accept the highlighted completion; with none offered, insert a two-space indent |
Up / Down |
Move the completion highlight (when the completion window is open) |
Enter |
With a /-command completion open, run the highlighted command; otherwise submit the line as typed |
Models and reasoning
| Key |
Action |
Ctrl+L |
Open the model picker overlay |
Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P |
Cycle the active model |
Shift+Tab |
Step the reasoning-effort (thinking) level |
Ctrl+T |
Toggle the reasoning / thinking rows |
Overlays and views
| Key |
Action |
Ctrl+R |
Open the session resume list |
Ctrl+O |
Expand or collapse full tool output |
Alt+Up |
Pull the newest queued input back into the composer |
Chords
Two double-tap chords are latched across keystrokes (the second tap must land within ~600 ms):
| Chord |
Action |
Esc Esc |
Double-escape — its effect is set by the doubleEscapeAction preference (see below) |
Ctrl+U Ctrl+U |
A second Ctrl+U within the chord window requests exit (the chord does not check whether the buffer is empty) |
doubleEscapeAction controls what Esc Esc does:
| Value |
Effect |
tree (or legacy branch) |
Open the transcript-tree navigator |
fork (or legacy rewind) |
Open the prior-turn fork picker |
clear |
Wipe the composer buffer (the default) |
An unreadable or unknown value falls back to clear.
Shell escape
| Prefix |
Action |
! <cmd> |
Run a shell command and keep its output in the conversation context |
!! <cmd> |
Run a shell command but exclude its output from context |
Notes on key delivery
Backspace is folded across several deliveries: terminals report it as key.backspace, key.delete (macOS), or a raw DEL (0x7f) / BS (0x08) byte — all map to erase-backward.- A real
Escape press arrives with an empty input and the meta flag set; bracketed-paste delimiters (ESC[200~ / ESC[201~) are stripped before classification so a paste is never mistaken for an Escape.
- Control bytes that also ride in the typed
input are dropped, so Ctrl+U never also types "u".
- Printable text accumulates into a short-debounce burst (12 ms) so a character-by-character paste lands whole.
