Command Terminal

The Command Terminal gives you instant access to your default agent without creating a task on the board. Use it for one-off actions like creating releases, running queries, or any ad-hoc interaction that doesn’t need to be tracked as a task.

Opening the Command Terminal

Press Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P, or click the terminal icon in the title bar (the left-most icon in the row on its right-hand side). The same icon toggles the layer closed again, so there is always a one-click way to hide it, even when a window is maximized. The icon’s border reflects activity across your open terminals: it marches green while an agent is working, holds a steady amber when one needs your input, and stays plain when everything is idle. That border covers the current project’s terminals; the plain activity icon beside it opens the Agent Monitor, where sessions from every project appear.

A window opens over a slight backdrop blur, with an agent session running at your project root using whichever CLI is set as the project’s default agent (any of the fourteen supported agents - Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Grok Build, Antigravity CLI, OpenCode, Aider, Qwen Code, Kimi Code, Factory Droid, Warp/Oz CLI, or Ollama). A fresh terminal also launches on the project’s default model and effort, so it starts on your preferred combo instead of the CLI’s own default.

How It Works

The Command Terminal spawns a transient session - a lightweight agent process that is fully independent of your board tasks:

• Runs at the project root on the configured default base branch
• Before spawning, Kangentic runs git fetch and fast-forwards the base branch so the session starts against the latest remote state
• Does not appear in the bottom panel’s terminal tabs
• Does not count toward the concurrent session limit
• Produces no toast notifications on exit
• Preserved across project switches - switch to another project and back, and the terminal is still running. Each project keeps its own terminals, so you can leave ad-hoc work going as you move between projects
• Non-resumable by design - stopping a terminal ends its session permanently

A shimmer overlay shows while the agent CLI initializes, then lifts to reveal the clean TUI. An idle indicator appears when the session is waiting for input. The Command Terminal session is included in the focused-session set for live PTY data, and idle notifications clearly label it as a Command Terminal session.

If you submit a prompt without an explicit task title, Kangentic auto-names the session from the prompt summary. See Auto-Naming.

You can also open the Changes panel from the Command Terminal window to review the diff against the base branch while working. Each terminal window owns its own Changes-panel state, so two side-by-side terminals can have different files and scopes open at once. It is the Uncommitted view only: with no task behind it there is no History section and no single-file diff windows, since both need a task to scope themselves to.

Window Behaviors

The Command Terminal is a real window, not a fixed overlay. You can:

• Drag it by the header and resize it from any edge or corner
• Maximize / restore it - double-click the header, click the maximize button, or press Ctrl+Shift+M / Cmd+Shift+M. Maximized, it fills the area between the title bar and status bar so controls and live stats stay reachable
• Snap it to a screen half or full screen

The layout (size, position, and maximized state) persists globally across every project and app restart, so the terminal always reopens where you left it.

Multiple Terminals

Run up to four Command Terminals at once. While the layer is open, a separate New terminal button (a second terminal icon with a + in its center) appears in the title bar just to the left of the main terminal icon - click it to open another terminal. It disables once you hit the four-terminal cap, and it stays plain during agent activity (only the main toggle icon carries the activity border). Each window titles itself Command Terminal N from a durable slot, so a sibling opening or closing never renumbers it; auto-naming from your first prompt then replaces the number with a real title. Each terminal also appears as a row in the Agent Monitor under the same title, with its branch as the eyebrow and a live output peek, and every sidebar project row carries a terminal glyph with a count and activity tone for its open Command Terminals - see Multi-Project.

• New terminals tile into the current window’s footprint, side by side, so you can keep two or more ad-hoc tasks cooking and glance between them
• Drag the seam between tiled terminals to rebalance them
• Drag a terminal by its header to dock it. Wherever the cursor goes decides what happens: run it into the left, right, or bottom edge of the board area to snap that half, into the top edge to maximize, or over another window to tile beside it. Press Escape mid-drag to abandon it, and the window returns to where it started. See Windows & Docking
• When a terminal is tiled, a pop-out button floats it back out of the tile group
• As a window narrows, the quick-action pills (Commands, Project, Changes, shortcuts) fold into a ... menu so the title always keeps its space

Context Bar

The Command Terminal carries the same context bar as a board session - shell, agent version, elapsed time, model, session cost, tool-call count (click for a per-tool breakdown), token usage, and context window fraction. The model and effort pills are interactive here too: click either to switch the running session’s model or reasoning level on the fly. See Context Bar.

Branch Picker

The header includes a branch picker that lets you switch branches without leaving the window:

1. Select a different branch from the dropdown
2. The current session is killed
3. A new session spawns on the selected branch

Note

If git checkout fails when switching branches (e.g., due to uncommitted changes), a warning toast explains the issue and the session stays on the current branch.

Hiding vs Stopping

Hiding keeps your terminals alive in the background. Press Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P again, press Ctrl+Shift+W / Cmd+Shift+W, click the title-bar terminal icon, or click the blurred backdrop to hide the layer. Every PTY keeps running, and reopening reattaches - the layout and running sessions are exactly where you left them.

Stopping destroys a single terminal. There is no per-window close button; instead, a window’s Stop control (red, also in the kebab menu as “Stop terminal”) kills that PTY, cleans up its session directory, and closes the window. The other terminals stay open. Stopping the last terminal hides the layer. Because transient sessions are non-resumable by design, a stopped terminal cannot be brought back.

Stop is not instant: it reads Stopping… with a spinner while the kill is in flight, and the window closes either way once it settles. If the kill itself fails, a toast says so rather than leaving you to assume the process is gone - the same warning appears if a branch switch could not stop the terminal it was replacing.

When to Use It

• Quick questions - ask Claude about the codebase without creating a task
• Releases - run release scripts or tag management
• One-off fixes - small changes that don’t warrant a tracked task
• Exploration - investigate code or debug issues interactively

Next steps

See also:

• Shortcuts - bind frequently used commands to keys
• Terminal & Activity Tab - the in-task terminal for managed sessions
• Creating Tasks - when you outgrow ad-hoc commands