The interactive TUI

The TUI is the primary way to use Magic Coder today. It’s a terminal app: transcript on top, an input box at the bottom, a status line in between. This page covers what’s actually in front of you when you run it — including the parts that aren’t obvious until you’ve used it for a while.

Layout

When you launch coder, you see four regions:

Transcript — the conversation. User messages, assistant text, reasoning (“Thinking…”) steps, tool calls, command output, diffs.
Top-right header — the workdir (compacted, e.g. ~/P/g/M/magic-coder-tui) and the git branch.
Status line (above the input) — current mode, token usage, connection state, email, version. See Status line cues below.
Input box — multi-line editor. Where you type messages and slash commands.

Overlays appear above the input for: slash-command autocomplete, approval prompts, the help modal, the follow-up queue, and the ask-questions form (when an agent asks structured questions).

Typing

The input is a multi-line editor. Standard text-editing keys plus a number of readline-style shortcuts.

Cursor movement

Key	What it does
`Left` / `Right`	Move cursor by character
`Alt+Left` / `Alt+Right` (or `Ctrl+Left` / `Ctrl+Right`)	Move by word
`Up` / `Down`	Move cursor by line within the input — but see “input history” and “follow-up queue” below for special cases
`Home` / `Ctrl+A`	Beginning of line
`End` / `Ctrl+E`	End of line
`PageUp` / `PageDown`	Scroll the transcript by a page

Editing

Key	What it does
`Backspace`	Delete previous character
`Delete`	Delete next character
`Alt+Backspace` / `Ctrl+Backspace` / `Ctrl+W`	Delete previous word
`Alt+Delete` / `Ctrl+Delete`	Delete next word
`Ctrl+U`	Kill from cursor to line start
`Ctrl+K`	Kill from cursor to line end

Sending vs. inserting newlines

Key	What it does
`Enter`	Send the message (or accept the highlighted slash suggestion)
`Shift+Enter`	Insert a newline
`Alt+Enter`	Insert a newline
`Ctrl+J`	Insert a newline
`\` + `Enter`	Insert a newline (the `\` is consumed)

The \ + Enter form is the recommended one inside tmux, which often eats Shift+Enter before it reaches the TUI. The /help modal automatically displays the right shortcut for your environment (Shift/Alt+Enter / Ctrl+J outside tmux, \ + Enter / Alt+Enter / Ctrl+J inside tmux).

Pasting

You can paste large blocks. Magic Coder smooths over paste bursts so the UI doesn’t stall on long pastes.

Slash commands

Type / to open the suggestion menu. Magic Coder fuzzy-matches as you type. Tab or Enter accepts the highlighted suggestion. See Slash commands for the full list.

When the slash menu is open:

Up / Down — navigate suggestions
Tab — accept the highlighted one
Esc — close the menu

A small inline preview shows the rest of the matching command in dim text (e.g., typing /lo previews gin or gout). Skill commands appear alongside the built-ins.

Input history

Each workspace has its own history of inputs you’ve typed (stored at ~/.magic/known/<workspace-key>/history.jsonl).

Up when the input box is empty → recall previous inputs
Down to move forward in history
Pressing any non-history key while browsing exits history mode but keeps the recalled text — you can then edit and send

Follow-up queue (don’t miss this)

While the agent is generating, Enter doesn’t wait — instead it queues your message as a “follow-up” that the agent will see when its current turn finishes. You can keep queuing. Up to four queued follow-ups are visible above the input.

Inside the follow-up panel:

↑ (when input is empty) — enter selection mode (highlight the latest queued item)
↑ / ↓ — move the selection
e — edit the selected follow-up
d — delete the selected follow-up
Enter while editing — save the change
Esc — exit selection or editing without committing

Follow-ups are flushed into the conversation automatically as the agent finishes its current turn. This is a real productivity win — you can keep thinking and queuing while the agent does the previous batch.

Approving tool calls

When the agent wants to run a shell command, apply a diff, delete files, or do anything else gated, the input panel becomes a menu and the transcript shows what’s being requested. The header is the tool name and the body is the diff or command being proposed.

Keys in the approval menu:

Key	Action
`↑` / `↓` (or `j` / `k`)	Move the selection
`Enter` (or `y`)	Apply the highlighted action
`a`	Jump to the “approve” action
`d`	Jump to the “deny” action
`n`	Reject this command immediately
`Esc`	Reject this command and skip to the next
`Ctrl+C`	Reject this command (special: on a plan-update prompt, drops into free-form feedback)

Available actions depend on the kind of pending approval:

Approve once — run this time only
Approve & remember — run AND record the decision so the same kind of command runs without asking next time
Deny once — reject this run; the agent gets a refusal and decides what to do next
Deny & remember — reject AND write a permanent deny rule
Approve all — when multiple commands are queued, approve every queued one in order
Provide feedback — for plan-update prompts, drop into a free-form feedback editor

If you started with --automagic, every approval prompt is auto-applied as “approve once.”

Ask-questions forms

The agent has a tool that lets it ask you a structured set of multiple-choice questions, with an optional “freeform” answer per question. When that fires, the input area becomes a form:

Tab / Shift+Tab — move between questions
↑ / ↓ (or k / j) — choose an answer option (the last option is “freeform”)
When the freeform option is selected, type a free-form answer; Enter saves it
Y / Enter — submit the form (only after every required question has an answer)
N / Ctrl+C — reject the form and refuse to answer

This is the agent’s way of asking you a question — typically when it has a real ambiguity that won’t resolve from reading the code.

Scrolling the transcript

Mouse wheel
PageUp / PageDown
Up / Down arrows when the input box is empty (only when not in input history mode and there’s no follow-up selection — those override)

The transcript auto-scrolls to follow new content unless you’ve scrolled up — in which case it stays where you are so you can read.

Mouse

Wheel — scroll the transcript (3 lines per tick)
Right-click on a message (in terminals that forward right-click events) — copy that block to the clipboard

Right-click copy targets:

Your messages
Assistant reasoning steps (“Thinking…” blocks)
Assistant text and preformatted blocks
Individual tool calls (with their arguments and output)

Some terminals keep right-click for their own native context menu. In those terminals, the copy gesture won’t reach the TUI; use your terminal’s normal text-selection instead.

Stopping the agent and quitting

Key	What it does
`Ctrl+C` (while agent is generating)	Stop the current run. Lets you redirect mid-loop.
`Ctrl+C` (when idle)	Show “press Ctrl+C again to quit” hint; second press within 2 seconds exits
`Ctrl+D`	Exit on empty input
`/exit` (or `/quit`)	Exit cleanly

Esc does not quit. Two quick Escs within 500ms clear the current input draft (without exiting).

Status line cues

There’s a single status line above the input.

Bottom-left (when online):

Token usage: X% used (Yk out of Zk) — Y is your latest assistant turn’s input tokens; Z is the model’s max input window (or the long-context window if --allow-long-context is on)
mode:agent or mode:plan — the current runtime mode (mode:plan indicates you’re in plan mode)
feedback pending — when a plan-update prompt is waiting for your free-form feedback
N pending hidden — when N tool-call approvals are suspended (e.g., during plan-mode review)

Bottom-right:

Connection-state dot: ● colored — yellow=connecting, green=online, red=offline; no dot when unauthenticated
Your sign-in email (when online)
vX.Y.Z — your installed Magic Coder version

Top-right:

Workdir, compacted (e.g., /Users/you/Projects/github.com/MathAndMagic/magic-coder-tui → ~/P/g/M/magic-coder-tui)
Git branch (when in a repo)

If the server tells the client “you need to upgrade,” the top-right is replaced by a warning banner: Update required: upgrade your Magic Coder client. Run coder --help to see the version you have, then re-run the install script (or brew upgrade magic-coder) to update.

When you’re not signed in, the input box accepts only this small set of slash commands:

/login — sign in
/help — show help
/exit (/quit) — exit
/clear (/reset) — clear local conversation state
/theme — change theme
/long-context — toggle the long-context preference

Other slash commands and any free-form text are blocked from submission. Run /login to unlock the rest.

The `/help` modal

/help opens a centered overlay. The actual contents:

Enter — send your message or accept a highlighted slash command
Shift/Alt+Enter / Ctrl+J (or \ + Enter / Alt+Enter / Ctrl+J inside tmux) — insert a new line
Esc + Esc — clear the current text input
/ — open the slash commands menu
Tab — accept the current slash suggestion
Ctrl + C — stop the current run, or press again to quit when idle
A docs link to https://coder.bridgeapp.ai

Press any key to close.

Sleep behavior

Long agent runs disable system sleep so your machine doesn’t doze off mid-loop. The default is auto — sleep is inhibited only while the agent is actively working. You can change this in ~/.magic/config.toml; see Sleep mode.

Exiting and resuming

When you exit, Magic Coder prints a hint like:

Continue on any device:
coder --continue 8a3f2b1e-...-7d9c

Save the UUID. See Resuming threads.