Use Coder in the terminal

Run coder in a project folder to open it there. To open it on another folder from where you are:

coder --in ~/code/my-project

It works in any terminal, over SSH, and in tmux. Install it from Download and install.

The screen

• The chat fills the screen: your messages, Coder's replies, and each step it takes (files read, searches, edits with a diff, and commands with their output).
• The input sits at the bottom, between two lines, starting with ❯.
• Top right of the input: who answers this chat (Auto, or the agent you picked) and, once it has answered, the model, such as Auto → Claude (Haiku 5.5) ("Auto picked Claude"; the chat can still move). An agent you picked shows alone, such as Claude (Haiku 5.5). Whenever a turn uses your Claude or Codex plan, on any agent, it also shows how much of that plan's usage windows you've used, such as 5h 12% · week 15%, or Auto → Coder (Haiku 5.5) · Claude 5h 12% · week 15% when Coder's own loop ran on your Claude plan. Otherwise Coder's own loop shows the chat's cost so far. Once the model has answered, it shows how much of the model's room for this chat is used. See Choose who answers.
• Bottom right of the input: the folder Coder works in and its Git branch.
• Under the input: once this chat has handed work to an agent, a list of chats: main (this one) first, then one row for each agent with what it is doing right now, and its time and tokens on the right. The chat you are looking at has a ❯ and a filled dot ●; the others have an empty dot ○. A line above names the keys (↑/↓ to select · esc for main), and ↓ 3 more says when the list is longer than the room. See Choose who answers.

Keys

Key	Does
Enter	Send.
Shift+Enter, Alt+Enter	A new line.
Esc	Stop the reply. Closes a list or screen. Twice on a draft clears it.
Shift+Tab	In a new chat, before its first message: choose who answers (Auto, Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, or another agent here).
Tab	Complete a / command.
Up, Down	Your earlier messages; Down from the input selects the agent rows under it.
Ctrl+N	Start a new chat in the same folder. The last one stays in /resume.
Ctrl+O	Show each step in full, or fold the steps back to one line each.
Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on macOS), F2	Open plugins.
PageUp, PageDown, mouse wheel	Scroll the chat. Ctrl+End jumps to the bottom.
Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E	Start or end of the line.
Cmd+A	Select the whole input, where the terminal passes Cmd keys on. Terminal, iTerm2, and Ghostty keep Cmd+A for themselves: use Ctrl+Shift+A there.
Drag	Copy text from the chat. Double-click copies a word, triple-click a line.
Click a message	Shows the model that wrote it (or answered it), such as Codex · GPT-6.1-Sol, at the right of that line for about three seconds.
Ctrl+C	Quit. The chat is saved.

Commands

Type / to see them above the input; keep typing to filter, and press Enter to run one.

Command	Does
/help	Every command and key.
/models	Choose the model of whoever answers, before the chat's first message.
/plugins	Turn plugins on and off, and add keys. See Coder's plugins.
/preferences	How much to favor cost, speed, or intelligence, and your saved choices of agent.
/resume	Open an earlier chat. /resume 3 picks from the last list; /resume ID opens one by its ID.
/rewind	Undo a turn's file changes and go back to its message.
/export	Save this chat to a file. /export PATH chooses where.
/compact	Summarize the older part of the chat so the model reads less.
/memory	What Coder remembers. /memory forget NAME deletes one note.
/agents	Background agents: open, stop, message, or resume one.
/agent	Start a background agent: /agent codex fix the flaky login test.
/loop	Repeat a prompt while Coder is open: /loop 5m check the deploy. /loop stop 1 or /loop stop all ends them.
/schedule	Run a prompt on this computer on a schedule, even while Coder is closed: /schedule weekdays 09:00 triage new issues. /schedule remove ID deletes one.
/shells	Commands running in the background. /shells stop ID stops one.
/login, /logout	Sign in to openagents.com, or sign out.
/sync	Save chats to your account: /sync on, /sync off, or /sync delete. See Sync, share, and export.
/appearance	Use your terminal's own background color instead of Coder's.
/brainstorm	Public profile lookups, when the Brainstorm plugin is on.

Chats

Every chat saves itself as you go, on this computer, in ~/.openagents/coder/sessions/.

• New chat: Ctrl+N. It starts in place, in the same folder.
• Earlier chats: /resume lists your 100 most recent. Up and Down (or j and k) choose, Enter opens, Esc goes back. A resumed chat comes back with everything it showed, without running anything again.
• Undo a turn: /rewind lists your last 20 messages, each with the files its turn changed. Pick one: Coder puts back the files that turn and every later turn changed (and deletes files they created), cuts the chat to just before that message, and puts the message back in the input for you to edit and send again. A file someone changed outside Coder since then is left as it is and named. Files over 1 MB and binary files can't be put back; the list says so.
• Stop: Esc stops the reply. What was done so far stays.

Stop a running reply before you resume or rewind.

Send more than text

• Screenshots and files: paste a screenshot, drop or paste the path of an image or a PDF, or write @path/to/file in your message. Up to 8 per message; an image up to 5 MB, a PDF up to 20 MB.
• A shell command: type ! on an empty input, then the command, such as !git status. It runs in your folder and its output joins the chat. Backspace on the empty input goes back to a normal message.
• While Coder works: on Coder's own loop, a message you send waits and goes next.

Instructions and memory

Every turn, Coder reads your project's AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md files, from your folder up to your home folder, plus your own ~/.openagents/AGENTS.md.

Coder also keeps short notes across chats: about you (for every project) and about this project. Say "remember that we use pnpm" to add one and "forget the pnpm note" to remove it. /memory lists them. Notes stay on this computer, under ~/.openagents/memory, and anything that looks like a password or key is refused. Set OPENAGENTS_MEMORY=off to turn instructions and memory off.

Where Coder keeps things

What	Where
Chats	~/.openagents/coder/sessions/
Settings, plugins, and keys	~/.openagents/coder/ (only you can read the files)
Exports	~/.openagents/exports/ unless you name a path
Memory	~/.openagents/memory/

To keep all of Coder's data in another folder instead:

coder --state ~/coder-data

Next: Choose who answers.