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Terminal and sessions

Each session can run pi in a terminal next to its board. The terminal keeps running in the server when you close the browser tab. Open the board again and you are back where you were. Start the server with --no-terminal to turn the terminal off and only watch sessions. To make pi’s colors follow the board, see pi’s theme in the board terminal.

The cursor blinks while the terminal has the focus, and shows as an outline when it does not. For this, the board starts pi with PI_HARDWARE_CURSOR=1. To keep pi’s own cursor, which does not blink, set "showHardwareCursor": false in pi’s settings.json.

The terminal needs the access token. The URL that the server prints carries it in the URL fragment (#t=...), and so does /kanban open. Open that URL once: the browser keeps the token, and the server keeps the same token when it restarts. Start the server with --new-token to replace it, for example after you shared the URL by mistake.

Keys What it does
Ctrl+` Show or hide the terminal
Alt+` Move the focus between the terminal and the page
Alt+Shift+` End the terminal
Ctrl + + / − / 0 Terminal text size. pi’s undo is Ctrl+_.

Ctrl+Shift+` lists the terminals the board runs. End the ones you are done with.

Click + New in the sidebar or press Ctrl+Alt+N. Type a folder, or pick one of your projects, then set:

  • Name. Optional. The board names the session after its first prompt when you leave it out.
  • Prompt. Optional. Sent as the first message. Paste or drop images to attach them.
  • Model and Thinking. The pi model and thinking level. Default uses pi’s settings.
  • Stay here. Start the session in the background and keep the current view.
  • Edit before run. Open a shell in the folder with the pi command typed in. Press Enter to run it.

Ctrl+Alt+R opens the same dialog to resume an older session in the terminal.

Ctrl+Shift+P opens the session picker. Type to filter by name or project. Tab switches between the sessions on the board and all sessions, and Ctrl+Space peeks at one before you open it. Shift+P opens the project picker, and Ctrl+Alt+S goes back to the previous session.

Press I or click the info icon on a session card. It shows the session id, project, paths, scratchpad, token use, and linked documents, each with a copy button. When pi-cost or pi-inspect is installed, a button in the header opens it as a pane. Shift+C copies the session id and Ctrl+Shift+C copies its name.

  • Groups. Drag a session onto a group, or press Shift+F10 on a session for its menu: move it to a group or fork it. ← and → collapse and expand a group header. The pi-kanban group and pi-kanban session group commands change groups from a shell.
  • Pins. . pins a session to the top, and > makes the pin sticky. From the terminal, Ctrl+Shift+. makes it sticky.
  • Dismiss. Ctrl+D takes a session off the sidebar. A pinned session goes to the Pinned group.

The search field at the top of the sidebar finds tasks, sessions, and projects.