TUI commands and keyboard shortcuts

Enter these commands in Orek’s composer. Start Orek with orek from your project directory; see Using Orek for a walkthrough. Type / and press Tab to discover commands and their arguments. Some commands, such as /init, /plan, and /workflow run, start or queue work for the model.

If orek starts without an active license or trial, a license menu opens before the chat so you can activate a key, import a signed code, save an offline request, or open your account.

Help and navigation

Command	Alias	Behavior
/help	?	Open command help in a full-width reader above the composer.
/keys	/keybindings, /shortcuts, /keymap	Open the interactive keymap editor. /keys list (also show or help) opens the read-only shortcut reference, and /keys reset opens the editor on the confirmation that restores every default binding.
/themes [name]	/theme	Open the theme picker or change the current theme.
/quit	/exit	Exit Orek. Stops every subagent, pauses running workflows, and stops background jobs and deletes their output; file changes stay.

Themes

/themes opens the picker, /themes list prints every theme, and /themes <name> switches for the current session. To keep a theme, save it with /config set ui.theme <name>.

Name	Theme	Appearance
auto	Follow OS Appearance	Orek Night in dark mode, Aurelian Bloom in light mode. The default.
dark	Orek Night	Midnight base, emerald prompts, indigo-purple accents, warm gold highlights.
verdigris	Verdigris Dusk	Spruce-charcoal base, patina green, smoked violet, hammered brass.
light	Aurelian Bloom	Warm parchment base, forest green, deep indigo, antique gold.
forge	Orek Forge	Coal-black base, phosphor-green prompts, flame attention, rune-violet accents.
dracula	Dracula	Plum-violet base with neon pink, cyan, and lime.
tokyo-night	Tokyo Night	Deep navy with soft neon accents.
solarized-dark	Solarized Dark	The classic low-contrast teal base.
solarized-light	Solarized Light	The classic cream base, accents deepened for contrast.
github-dark	GitHub Dark	GitHub’s dark editor palette.
github-light	GitHub Light	GitHub’s light editor palette.
ayu-dark	Ayu Dark	Near-black base with warm orange accents.
ayu-light	Ayu Light	Off-white base with warm orange accents.
atom-one-dark	Atom One Dark	Atom’s slate-gray editor palette.
xcode-light	Xcode Light	Xcode’s white editor palette.

Other spellings also work, for example orek-forge for forge and tokyo for tokyo-night, both in /themes and in ui.theme.

Colors adapt to your terminal. On a 16-color terminal, or with NO_COLOR set, themes use the terminal’s named colors: success, warning, and error keep their own colors, and background shading is dropped.

Setup, models, and configuration

Command	Alias	Behavior
/setup [provider [id]]	—	Bare /setup opens the setup wizard and saves your provider, credential, pinned model and provider, and theme. /setup provider [id] adds a provider or replaces its credential without changing pins or theme. Both work only while Orek is idle, then reload the session from your saved settings.
/model [selector] [--effort level]	—	Open the model picker, choose a model for this session (<provider>/<model>), or show the catalog with /model list (or ls, show). /model auto or /model dynamic returns to automatic model selection. --effort=level also works. If the conversation is already too long for the model you pick, Orek offers to compact it first.
/effort [level]	/thinking	Choose a reasoning effort the model supports (auto, none, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, or max).
/routing [show|status]	—	Show your pins, routes, and the latest model choice.
/config [action]	—	Bare /config, list, ls, or show lists supported keys. get <key>, set <key> <value>, and unset <key> read or change settings; path or paths shows where settings are saved, init creates a project config, and policy shows approval rules.
/doctor	—	Open diagnostics for configuration, providers, the index, local models (the GPUs Orek found and whether local models run on the GPU or the CPU), and command execution.
/feedback [options]	—	Preview or save a local feedback report; accepts --rating, --category, --comment and --output as in the CLI. Review it, then submit it yourself through support.
/support	—	Show the support contact link and exact preview/save instructions. Generate diagnostic bundles with the standalone recovery command orek bug-report.

/config show lists supported keys; run orek config show in your shell for all of your settings. /config set and unset save to the key’s usual location and say whether the change applies now or in the next session. Changing routing.pinned_model or routing.pinned_provider switches the running session immediately. Model changes and routing.* changes are refused while the index is being built, updated, or repaired. A change to agent.reasoning_replay takes effect at the next model switch; if you started Orek with --reasoning-replay, that flag wins until Orek exits. Don’t add the CLI’s --scope flag to /config. See Configuration.

Context and results

Command	Alias	Behavior
/index [action]	—	Index help; supports build, update, repair [--dry-run] [--yes] [--verbose], status (including whether local models run on the GPU or the CPU), watch, and query <text>.
/retrieval	—	Show automatic retrieval status (status); on/off change it for this session, clear undoes that, and persist on/persist off saves your default.
/context [view]	—	Show what the latest request sent: token counts (reported or estimated), the input window, the compaction limit, and, after a model switch, which earlier reasoning was resent, translated, filled in, or dropped. Views are show (default), raw, summary, and breakdown.
/detail [id|#id|list]	—	Open the latest or a chosen tool result in the full-width detail reader; list shows recent result IDs.
/collapse	—	Fold or restore inline previews on every tool and agent card.
/copy [n]	/yank	Copy fenced code block n (a positive number, default 1), counting from the newest message and, within a message, from the top.
/compact	—	Summarize earlier conversation to free context, keeping recent messages. The transcript stays visible, with a Context compacted marker. Typed during a turn, it runs after the turn ends. Takes no arguments.
/usage	—	Show token use and cost: a By segment table with one row for each stretch of conversation on one model (model, reasoning replay method, requests, tokens including reasoning, cost), then a By model table of totals. * marks incomplete costs and -- unknown ones.
/log [options]	—	Show the last 50 lines of Orek’s log; -n N or --lines N changes the count. --path shows where the log is and --clear empties it.

/index watch status, /index watch start, and /index watch stop control whether this session keeps the index updated as files change. When provider web tools are on, their search and fetch cards and clickable source links appear in the transcript and detail reader, and stay there when you resume the session. See Manage context.

After a model switch, the line under your message names the new model and what happened to earlier reasoning, for example openai/gpt-6-luna · earlier reasoning dropped (drop). If Orek has to stop sending Claude’s earlier reasoning for another reason, such as a change in available tools, the transcript shows a one-line notice. See After a model switch.

Conversations and work

Command	Alias	Behavior
/sessions	/resume	Open the full-width session browser for this project (/ filters, Space/i previews, t opens the full transcript, Enter resumes).
/add-dir <PATH> [persist]	—	Attach another workspace directory to this session. The prompt, file and shell confinement, and the broker adopt the wider root set together; the conversation and session stay as they are. persist also saves the complete root set as this project’s default for future sessions.
/clear	—	Start a new conversation. Stops every subagent, pauses running workflows, and stops background jobs and deletes their output. Workspace directories reset to the --add-dir set Orek started with, or else this project’s saved default; directories attached with /add-dir alone are dropped. Not available while a workflow command such as pause, resume, or cancel is still finishing.
/export [path]	/save	Save the conversation as Markdown.
/undo	—	Remove your latest exchange from the screen only. The model’s history, the saved session, and file changes stay as they are.
/init	—	Ask Orek to study the project and write an AGENTS.md, subject to your permission rules.
/plan [task]	—	Enter Plan mode, optionally with a task; waits for the next turn if one is running. exit leaves Plan mode and keeps plan files; clear leaves it and clears the active plan.
/workflows [action]	/workflow	Open the full-width workflows view with four tabs ([1 Overview], [2 Tasks], [3 Runs & Agents], [4 Recipes]). list shows recipes, and run <recipe> [prompt] (or %<recipe> [prompt] in the composer) asks the selected thread’s model to run one. status [run-id], pause <run-id>, resume <run-id>, and cancel <run-id> control runs; approve <run-id> <request-id> and deny <run-id> <request-id> answer a step’s pending gate.
/auto-continue [action]	—	Show status (status); on/off change it for this session, clear undoes that, and persist on/persist off saves agent.auto_continue to your user settings. Each automatic continuation shows an Auto-continue: notice, which is saved with the conversation and reappears when you resume it.
/motion [action]	—	Show status (status); auto, full, reduced, and off change it for this session, clear undoes that, and persist <level> saves ui.motion to your user settings. reduced slows animation and off shows still symbols; a [motion:reduced] or [motion:off] chip appears in the status bar when the level isn’t full.
/steer <instruction>	—	Send text guidance to the running turn after its current batch of tool calls, before the next model request. Attached images are not sent; recall the item before it is delivered to keep them. If the turn ends first, the guidance starts the next turn.
/agent [target|subcommand]	—	profiles [name] lists or shows subagent profiles. Bare /agent lists this session’s subagents with their task, activity, and changed files; main or <target> (switch <target>) switches views. send <target> <message> sends a message (starting a new turn if the subagent is idle or closed), close <target> stops its running turn, and export <target> [path] saves its conversation.

Resuming a session replaces the current conversation, so check the selected row before pressing Enter. /export writes Markdown; use orek session export in your shell for JSONL. Cancelling, /undo, and /clear don’t undo file edits. See Workflow runs for workflow controls and recovery.

/add-dir ../lib attaches ../lib (quote paths that contain spaces; persist goes after the closing quote, so /add-dir "my dir persist" names a directory literally called my dir persist) for the rest of this session: Orek validates the path, plans the new root set, saves the project grant when persist is used, checkpoints the session journal, ends the running session, rebuilds the prompt, tool path validation, and command broker against the one combined root set, and installs the result without changing the conversation or session id. If any durable write fails, the command rolls back the stores it already touched and installs nothing; the failure message names the grant, journal, and live runtime state separately. /add-dir ../lib persist additionally saves the complete resulting root set as a per-project default in your user configuration (workspace-roots/<project-hash>.toml, never the checkout’s .orek/config.toml); new sessions for this project start with it unless --add-dir says otherwise, and resuming this session restores the root set the journal recorded. The open project index is reused and same-conversation status-bar telemetry and agent-loop session state (title latch, last served model, replay state) are preserved. Additional roots widen file, shell, and workspace confinement and the prompt’s workspace context only — indexing, language-server roots, MCP consent, project hashing, and session storage stay anchored to the project root. /add-dir needs an idle session (no running turn, compaction, approval, question, queued prompt, running or idle subagent, or index job); a session without persistence can still attach roots live, but only persist survives to future sessions.

Integrations and execution controls

Command	Alias	Behavior
/skills [import <candidate-id>]	—	Bare /skills lists active skills and skills you can import from other tools. import <candidate-id> imports one.
/mcp	—	Open the full-width MCP panel and its four-tab server view. status, resources [name], consent <name> [confirm], enable <name>, disable <name>, reload [name], auth <name>, and logout <name> manage your servers.
/lsp	—	Show language-server status; trust <server> [confirm], revoke <server>, reset [confirm], and restart [server] manage trust and restarts.
/sandbox [action]	—	Turn the OS sandbox on or off for commands Orek runs (off by default). It filters environment variables and, on macOS, confines commands with Seatbelt; [sandbox] shows in the status bar while it is on. Bare /sandbox opens a picker; on or off applies to this session (and survives /clear, /sessions, and /setup), and persist on|off saves exec.sandbox_runtime_enabled to your user settings. Setting OREK_SANDBOX=off forces the sandbox off and shows ⚠ OREK_SANDBOX=off.
/permissions [mode]	—	Open the approval-mode picker or set default, auto_review, or yolo (Alt+Y turns yolo on or off and approves waiting requests). Choosing auto_review checks that the local Shieldstral review model and its llama-server are ready, and shows [AUTO-REVIEW: DEGRADED] if shell commands will need manual approval instead. Shells that are neither POSIX-compatible nor PowerShell (such as fish) always ask outside yolo. In Plan mode, the model stays read-only until planning ends; see Shell commands for commands you run yourself.

Consents and credentials are saved. Turning an MCP server on or off with /mcp lasts only for the session; add servers in your configuration. There is no /lsp check, /mcp add, or /license command. MCP servers that provide prompts can add their own slash completions.

Keyboard shortcuts

Where	Keys	Action
Composer	Enter	Accept the selected completion if one is showing; otherwise send the request or command.
Composer	Ctrl+J; Shift+Enter where supported	Insert a newline.
Completion	Tab or Enter; Esc	Apply a completion (Enter also applies a selected model); dismiss the list.
Composer	Alt+Up/Down; Ctrl+R	Recall drafts; search input history. With an empty composer, Alt+Up recalls pending input first.
Composer, empty draft	Shift+Left	Recall the latest pending input for editing, with its images and chosen skill mentions.
Composer, empty draft	Shift+Delete	Discard the latest pending input without cancelling the running work.
Composer	Alt+O	Open the external editor set by VISUAL/EDITOR.
Composer	Ctrl+V or Ctrl+Alt+V	Paste an image from the clipboard.
Conversation	PageUp/PageDown; mouse wheel	Scroll.
Conversation	Cmd/Ctrl+click (or Alt+click on macOS and Linux)	Open a web link from the transcript in your browser.
Conversation	Ctrl+F	Search the conversation.
Conversation	Ctrl+O; Ctrl+T	Expand or collapse thinking (or the focused card); open or close the full-width detail reader.
Tool cards	Alt+P/Alt+N (or Alt+[/Alt+]); Alt+Enter	Focus a card; open it in the full-width detail reader.
Focused card	j/k; Enter/Space/o; Alt+Enter/Ctrl+T; y; Esc	Move focus; expand or collapse inline; open the full-width detail reader; copy; clear focus.
Model picker	Up/Down; Left/Right; Enter	Choose a model; change reasoning effort where supported; apply.
Session browser	Up/Down or j/k; /; Space/i; t; Enter	Move; filter (Enter/Esc leave the filter); show or hide the preview; read the full transcript; resume the selected session.
Session browser	s; o; Ctrl+O; c; Esc or q	Change sorting; change density for this session; change density and save it as your default; copy the resume command; clear the filter or close.
MCP control panel	Up/Down or j/k; /; Enter/i; 1–4 or Tab	Move; filter; open the server view (Tools, Prompts, Resources, Config & Status); switch its tabs.
MCP control panel	e/d; r/R; c; a/o; Esc or q	Enable, or disable/cancel; reload everything or reconnect; preview or confirm consent; sign in or out with OAuth; clear the filter or close. Disable, reconnect, sign-in, and sign-out need a second press of the same key (Esc cancels).
Workflows navigator	1–4 or Tab/Shift+Tab; Up/Down or j/k; Space	Switch tabs (Overview, Tasks, Runs & Agents, Recipes); select; expand or collapse details.
Workflows navigator	Enter; f; p; x; Esc	Open the selected subagent or fill in /workflow run <recipe> ; follow the active run; pause or resume a run; cancel a run or close a subagent; close.
Keymap editor	Up/Down or j/k; PageUp/PageDown; Home/End or g/G; /; Esc or q	Move; page; jump to the first or last row; filter; clear the filter or close. These movement keys belong to the editor and keep working however you rebind other screens.
Keymap editor	Enter or e; c; l; Esc	Rebind the selected action with a single key; with a two-stroke chord; with a leader suffix (the next key after the leader). Pick the mode before you press anything: while capturing, every key including Tab and Shift+Tab is recorded, and only Esc cancels.
Keymap editor	r; u, Delete, or Backspace; R	Reset the selected action to its default; unbind it (Backspace edits the filter while one is active); reset every keybinding after a y/n confirmation (R works only while browsing the list, not while filtering or capturing).
Approval/plan modal	Tab/Shift+Tab or Left/Right; Enter	Choose an option; confirm it. Up/Down scrolls the dialog.
Approval/plan modal	Alt+Y; Alt+N or Esc	Approve or accept; deny or keep planning.
Active work/input	Ctrl+C	Cancel the running work, or clear your input when idle.
Threads	Alt+Left/Right	Switch between the main conversation and subagents.

Keys depend on what is focused: Enter in an approval dialog confirms the highlighted option, which isn’t necessarily approval. Pending-input shortcuts apply to the selected thread, give way to dialogs and focused cards, and leave a draft you have started alone. Shift+Left needs Shift alone, without Ctrl or Alt. Check the on-screen hints and /keys list in your installed version.

Changing and resetting keybindings

/keys (or /keymap) opens the keymap editor. The first row, ⟲ Reset all keybindings to defaults, is pinned above the actions. Press Enter on it, or R while you are browsing the list (not while filtering or capturing a key), to open a y/n confirmation. y removes the whole [ui.keymap] table from your user config, including the leader and chord timeout, and shows “All keybindings restored to defaults.” Nothing is reset until you confirm, and the reset works even when the saved keymap is invalid. /keys reset opens the editor already showing that confirmation.

Each change is validated against the same rules as orek config set and saved to your user config at once. If a hand-edited [ui.keymap] stops Orek from starting, the error ends with the fix: run orek config unset ui.keymap. If an invalid [ui.keymap] is found while Orek is running, Orek keeps the built-in keys and warns you; edits in the editor are rejected until you run /keymap reset (or press R), because every change is validated together with the saved keymap. Configuration lists the keymap settings.

Rebound keys follow these runtime rules:

• Chords that include Cmd, Super, Hyper, or Meta are ignored, never treated as the bare key.
• A held chord prefix stays pending without extending the chord timeout. Where your terminal reports key releases (Windows and kitty-protocol terminals), pressing the prefix again counts as a new keystroke only after you let go of it. A finished chord, including a doubled stroke such as y y, is never treated as key auto-repeat.
• In a question, any key or chord bound to toggle_option toggles the option. A bare printable binding on a focused Other row toggles it instead of typing.
• In the /sessions and /mcp pickers, the key bound to close_or_back clears a non-empty filter first and then closes. In filter mode only plain Esc and Enter leave the filter, so a modified binding such as ctrl+enter still fires.
• The /mcp teardown prompt, footer, and status pills show your binding for the action.

Saved readable reasoning reappears as finished Thought cards when you resume a session, without elapsed times. ui.show_thinking controls whether they show and ui.thinking_expanded whether they start expanded; Ctrl+O toggles them.

With ui.clickable_links = true (the default), web links in the transcript are terminal hyperlinks, so Cmd+click (macOS) or Ctrl+click (Windows and Linux) opens the full URL even when it is shortened on screen. On macOS and Linux, Orek also supports mouse input, bracketed paste, and Alt+click. On Windows these are off, so scroll with PageUp/PageDown.

Pending input

Messages and commands that have to wait appear in the pending tray above the composer (or as Pending:N on small screens) until Orek picks them up:

• During a turn, after the current batch of tool calls: plain-text messages to the main thread and /steer guidance. If the turn ends first, they start the next turn. If the provider is still finishing its own web search or fetch, delivery waits for the next batch.
• After the turn ends: prompts with images and queued commands such as /compact, /index build, /index update, /index repair, /plan, and /init.

Other commands run immediately or explain why they can’t run yet. Text sent while a subagent is selected goes to that subagent; images can only go to the main thread.

/steer and /plan always go to the main thread. While an item is in the tray, press Shift+Left or Alt+Up with an empty composer to bring it back with its attachments and skill mentions, or Shift+Delete to discard it.

Shell commands

Start the composer with ! to run a command in your shell (! git status, or ! Write-Output 'hello' in PowerShell). The composer switches to Shell mode with a different border color; deleting ! switches back. Completion, $skill mentions, and images don’t work in Shell mode.

These commands run without approval prompts, even in Plan mode, but follow your OS sandbox setting. Run them from the main thread when no turn, approval, compaction, or index job is in progress. A command can’t read keyboard input (so it can’t answer prompts such as ssh passphrases) and runs until it exits, you press Ctrl+C, or an hour passes. While it runs, the transcript shows a shell card with its latest output; when it finishes, the result replaces the card. The command and its output, limited in size and with secrets hidden, are saved to the conversation as one message without starting a model turn. The live progress is only shown to you, never sent to the model.

If saving the result fails, /quit keeps the session open so you don’t lose the output: press Ctrl+C to retry saving without running the command again, or run /export to save a Markdown copy before you exit.

Use the CLI reference for scripting, license commands, session exports, and other shell commands.