Chats, tabs and windows

Arrange separate sessions into split tabs, organize them in the sidebar, and use multiple windows without losing track of which terminal you are controlling.

Know the three surfaces

⌘N / Ctrl+N fills the focused empty pane or starts a chat in a new tab. ⌘T / Ctrl+Shift+T does the same for a shell. A new tab does not start a crew; use a mission when agents need a shared feed.

Split and navigate

Use ⌘D / Ctrl+D to split right and ⇧⌘D / Ctrl+Shift+D to split down. Choose New chat in an empty pane or select a chat from the sidebar. Drag pane headers to reorder the layout; the layout picker offers common arrangements. Splitting is bounded by the available window size.

Use ⌘[ / Ctrl+[ and ⌘] / Ctrl+] to move focus between panes. ⌘1–9 / Ctrl+1–9 selects the corresponding visible sidebar row: a tab or mission in either view. ⇧⌘[ / Ctrl+Shift+[ and ⇧⌘] / Ctrl+Shift+] move through recently viewed pages.

Drag files from Finder or File Explorer onto a chat pane, a drawer terminal or a mission slot to insert their paths at the prompt, quoted as when you paste files. The terminal highlights while the files are over it and takes focus when you drop them; nothing runs until you press Return.

For shell splits, Runner follows the shell's reported working directory. It installs that reporting for zsh and bash on macOS. Windows shells without their own directory-reporting prompt use the original launch directory for a split, even after cd.

Organize the sidebar

Use the sidebar context menus to rename and organize tabs, group them into folders, and pin work you return to often. Projects group work by directory; folders organize sidebar entries. Status markers show activity, attention and stopped sessions. Use them to find the terminal to inspect, rather than treating an idle marker as a completed review.

Use the list-filter button beside Search to switch between Projects (the default) and Active. Runner remembers your choice. Active lists Chats → Missions → Terminals, hides empty groups, and shows each group's visible count. Click a group's heading to collapse or expand it; Runner remembers which groups are collapsed. Active includes running chats, terminals and missions with live members, including idle agents and shells. Within each group, rows keep the order their tabs and missions were created, oldest first, and new work joins the end; status changes, unread output, renames and restarts never move a row. The second line shows the project and relative folder, or the working directory for work outside a project. Renaming edits only the title, keeping this location visible.

Active has one row per tab, like Projects. A tab with any agent pane appears under Chats; a tab of only terminals appears under Terminals. Split tabs use the split icon and tab name, derived from the first chat or terminal pane unless you name the tab. Selecting a row opens its tab on the pane that needs attention, or on the tab's last focused pane when none does. Mission members roll up into one mission row. A stopped chat or mission stays only for unread output or an error; selection alone does not keep it visible. A finished unread response stays until viewed, and an error stays until cleared. Every running terminal is listed, including idle shells; an exited terminal stays only for unread output or an error. Terminal activity uses Runner's existing output-based Busy estimate; drawer terminals are excluded. Active keeps context menus; drag and reorder remain in Projects.

The footer shows live weekly Codex and Claude usage when those agents are installed and enabled. Select it to open Usage, including other supported providers. When only other usage providers are available, a Usage label keeps the popover accessible. The separate gear opens Settings. An available Runner update appears beside the Runner name.

⌘K / Ctrl+K opens the command palette to find chats, missions, roles, crews and commands. ⌘S / Ctrl+S toggles the sidebar.

Use another window

Press ⇧⌘N / Ctrl+Shift+N to open another Runner window. If a chat or mission is already being driven in another window, Runner shows an Open in another window overlay. Use its handoff controls to focus or bring the subject here. A terminal has one owning window at a time; the overlay prevents two windows from sending competing input.

Close the window with ⇧⌘W / Alt+F4. Its layout is saved, and sessions can keep running. On Windows, closing the last window follows Settings → General → When Runner quits. On macOS, quitting the application is separate from closing a window.

⌘W / Ctrl+Shift+W acts on the focused drawer, pane or chat tab. It is different from closing the whole window. Use Stop when you specifically want to halt an agent, and Archive when you want a chat out of active lists.

For alerts while the app is in the background, open Settings → Notifications. Chat events are enabled by default; mission events are opt-in. Clicking a notification opens its chat or mission.

See Keyboard shortcuts for all defaults and customization.