The workbench

A tab’s workbench is everything in the middle of the screen: the agent, the status panel above it, and the panes you open beside it. Every pane works in the tab’s worktree.

The agent window

The tab’s agent runs in its own pseudo-terminal, as it would on its own. Everything you type goes to it, so you use the agent exactly as you are used to, its own slash commands and shortcuts included. Only the prefix, ctrl+q, is nerdr’s; ctrl+q p sends a ctrl+q to the agent.

Scroll back with the mouse wheel over the pane, or ctrl+q b and the arrows and PgUp/PgDn; q ends it.
Copy by dragging over the text; it is copied when you let go. This uses the terminal’s OSC 52 clipboard support, so it works over SSH and inside herdr too. If the agent uses the mouse itself, hold shift.
Open the worktree in your editor with ctrl+q o: VS Code, or what worktree_editor names.

The tab’s first agent stays as long as the tab, so you can always continue its conversation.

The status panel

The lines above the agent tell you what the tab is about, so you can pick up where you left off without asking:

Label	Meaning
`last:`	Your latest request, up to two lines. At first, the tab’s first task. A short answer such as “yes” is shown after the request it answers: `fix the redirect … → yes`. Click it, or press `ctrl+q a h`, to list everything you sent the agent. Drag over a message there to copy part of it, or press `c` to copy all of it.
`recap:`	Claude’s summary after a few idle minutes. Replaces `last:` until your next message.
`status:`	Where the work stands, in the agent’s own words (`nerdr status`).
`note:`	Your note for this tab; edit it with `ctrl+q a n`.
`tasks:`	Tasks waiting in F3.
`rev:`	The code review: its round and what it is doing.
`swap:`	Waiting for a handoff while you switch the tab’s agent.
`pr:`	Merged pull requests, and the shortcut to close the tab.

ctrl+q h shows what happened while you were away: the agent’s turns and questions, messages sent, new commits, pull request and CI changes.

Panes beside the agent

The buttons at the top of the agent’s frame, +terminal, +agent and +review, open a pane beside it, in the same worktree:

Pane	Keys	What it is
Terminal	`ctrl+q t t`	Your shell, for tests, a dev server or `git log`. It runs until you close its pane or the shell exits.
Agent	`ctrl+q t a`	Another agent, picked in a dialog, in a new conversation of its own.
Code review	`ctrl+q t r`	A second agent reviews the work of the agent whose pane has the keyboard. See Code review.

Each agent in the tab has a number, shown in its frame with its status light: 1:claude, 2:codex. Agents use these numbers to talk to each other. Agents beside the first are kept with the tab and resumed when nerdr starts again, each in its own conversation. A tab has at most eight agents beside its first.

The tab’s light in the tab list, and the waiting list, cover all of its agents. Tasks, restarts, switches and reviews are for the agent whose pane has the keyboard.

Moving between panes

After `ctrl+q`	Action
`tab`	Next pane, then the review panel
`t ←` / `t →`	The pane on the left / right
`t ⇧←` / `t ⇧→`	Move the pane one place left / right; more arrows move it on, `enter` ends
`t m`	Minimise the pane, or show it again
`t x`	Close the pane; asks first if its agent is working

Click a pane to give it the keyboard. Drag the column between two panes to share the room between them, and right-click it to share it evenly again.

When the panes do not fit

Panes stay side by side while each is at least pane_min_width columns wide (60 by default). When one more does not fit, the pane used longest ago is minimised: it goes to a row above the others, marked ▸ with its light (terminals show $), and keeps running. The pane with the keyboard is always shown. Click a pane in the row, or move to it with ctrl+q t ← / t →, to bring it back.

− in a pane’s frame minimises it by hand, and × closes it. Right-click an entry in the row for the same, or middle-click to close.

Commands for the agent

After `ctrl+q`	Action
`a a`	Give the agent the keyboard
`a n`	Edit the tab’s note
`a h`	List the prompts you sent the agent, the latest first
`a s`	Switch to another agent in the same worktree, with a handoff
`a r`	Restart the agent and resume its conversation; asks first if it is busy
`a c`	Code review of the agent, as `t r`
`a x`	Stop the review of the agent
`m`	Queue a task for the agent; see Tasks (F3)