TUI Keybindings

Crucible’s terminal UI supports readline-style editing and custom shortcuts.

Global Keys

Key	Action
Enter	Send message / confirm
Ctrl+C	Clear input; with empty input, press twice (within 300ms) to quit
Esc	Cancel streaming / close popup or modal
Ctrl+Enter	During streaming: cancel the turn, keeping your draft in the input
Shift+Tab	Cycle mode: Normal → Plan → Auto
Ctrl+T	Toggle thinking/reasoning display
F1	Open command palette

Input Editing (Emacs Mode)

Readline-style keybindings for the input box:

Key	Action
Ctrl+A / Home	Move to beginning of line
Ctrl+E / End	Move to end of line
Ctrl+B / Ctrl+F	Move one character left / right
Alt+B / Ctrl+Left	Move word backward
Alt+F / Ctrl+Right	Move word forward
Ctrl+W	Delete word backward
Ctrl+U	Clear the entire input
Delete	Delete character forward
Ctrl+J	Insert a newline (multi-line input)
Up / Ctrl+P	Previous input history entry
Down / Ctrl+N	Next input history entry (back to draft at the end)

Up/Down recall previously submitted input; the draft you were typing is preserved and restored when you cycle past the newest entry.

Scrolling the Conversation

Completed conversation content graduates to the terminal’s own scrollback — the live viewport stays small. To review history, use your terminal’s native scrolling (mouse wheel, Shift+PageUp, tmux copy mode, etc.). The TUI does not capture the mouse, so terminal-native text selection and copying work as usual. PageUp/PageDown are not bound in the chat view (the shell modal and pager modals bind them — see Shell Execution).

Mode Switching

Key	Action
Shift+Tab	Cycle mode: Normal → Plan → Auto → Normal

See Modes for details on what each mode does.

Thinking Display

When using models that support extended thinking (Claude with thinking budget, Qwen3-thinking, DeepSeek-R1, etc.), press Ctrl+T to show or hide thinking blocks. This works during streaming too, and applies retroactively to visible blocks. A toast confirms the new state.

Thinking Budget: Configure via :set thinkingbudget=<preset> using presets like high, medium, low. See Commands for details.

Popup Navigation

When a completion popup is open (commands, files, notes, models):

Key	Action
Up/Down	Navigate items
Enter / Tab	Accept selection
Escape	Close popup
Backspace	Narrow filter (closes popup when the trigger is deleted)
Type	Filter items

Modal Keymaps

Modals capture all input while open.

Permission modal

Shown when the agent needs approval for a tool call (see the footer hints):

Key	Action
y	Allow this call
n	Deny this call
a	Allowlist: save the suggested pattern project-scoped and allow
Up/Down / k/j	Move between Yes / No / Allowlist
Enter	Confirm the highlighted option
Shift+Enter	On Allowlist: save the rule user-scoped (global) instead
Tab	Edit free text (deny reason, or the allowlist pattern)
h	Expand/collapse the diff (file operations)
Esc / Ctrl+C	Deny and close

While editing text: Enter sends, Esc returns to the options. :set perm.show_diff, perm.autoconfirm_session, and perm.full_commands tune this modal — see Commands.

Ask modals

Agent questions (single-select, multi-select, or free-text “other”):

Key	Action
Up/Down / k/j	Navigate choices
Space	Toggle a choice (multi-select)
Tab	Jump to free-text entry (when offered); in batched questions, next question
Enter	Confirm selection / submit text
Esc / Ctrl+C	Cancel (sends a cancelled response)

Show (pager) modal

Read-only content the agent asks you to review:

Key	Action
j/k, Down/Up	Scroll one line
PageDown / Space, PageUp	Scroll one page
g / G	Jump to top / bottom
q / Esc	Close

Edit modal

Inline text editing with a small vim-like model: h/j/k/l or arrows move, i/a/o enter insert mode, Esc leaves insert mode (or cancels from normal mode), Ctrl+S saves and submits the edited content.

Command Prefixes

Prefix	Purpose	Example
/	Slash commands	/mode, /plan, /undo
@	Attach a workspace file	@src/main.rs, @notes/todo.md
[[	Note references	[[My Note]], [[Help/Config]]
:	REPL commands	:set, :model, :quit, :help
!	Shell execution	!ls -la, !git status

• / triggers after whitespace or at line start
• @ opens a popup to autocomplete workspace files. The file’s contents are attached to that message, so the agent reads them without a tool call — the path must be inside the workspace, and a big file is truncated with a note
• [[ opens a popup to autocomplete notes from your kiln (wikilink syntax)
• : triggers at line start for REPL commands
• ! opens a shell modal with streaming output

See Also

• Commands - REPL commands (:set, :model, etc.)
• Shell Execution - Shell Execution
• Index - TUI Overview
• Configuration - Configuration Options