Keyboard shortcuts

This page documents keyboard shortcuts available during interactive sessions in the simse terminal UI. These shortcuts apply to the TUI only -- print mode (simse --print) does not have keyboard shortcuts.

Input and editing

Key	Action
Enter	Send the current message
Shift+Enter	Insert a newline (multi-line input)
Backspace	Delete the character before the cursor
Delete	Delete the character after the cursor
Ctrl+W	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl+U	Clear the input line from the cursor to the start
Ctrl+K	Clear the input line from the cursor to the end
Left / Right	Move cursor one character
Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right	Move cursor one word
Home / Ctrl+A	Move cursor to the start of the input
End / Ctrl+E	Move cursor to the end of the input

Conversation navigation

Key	Action
Up / Down	Scroll through conversation history
Page Up / Page Down	Scroll one screen at a time
Ctrl+Home	Jump to the top of the conversation
Ctrl+End	Jump to the bottom (most recent)

When the input field is focused, Up and Down navigate input history (previous messages you have sent). When the conversation pane is focused, they scroll the conversation.

Command autocomplete

Key	Action
/ (at start of input)	Activate slash command mode
Tab	Autocomplete the current slash command prefix
Escape	Dismiss the autocomplete suggestion

Slash command autocomplete uses prefix matching. Type /co and press Tab to cycle through /compact and /context. Short aliases also autocomplete.

Session management

Key	Action
Ctrl+D	End the current session and exit
Ctrl+C	Cancel an in-progress response (interrupts the current operation)
Ctrl+Z	Suspend the CLI (resume with fg in the shell)

Tool call interaction

When simse requests permission for a tool call, a permission dialog appears:

Key	Action
a	Allow once
A	Allow always (for this session)
r	Reject once
R	Reject always (for this session)
d	Show diff (for file write operations)
Escape	Dismiss (equivalent to reject once)

In "dontAsk" permission mode, the dialog does not appear.

Overlays and dialogs

Key	Action
Ctrl+S	Open the settings overlay
Ctrl+L	Open the librarian overlay (search and browse the adaptive store)
Ctrl+T	Open the tool call history overlay
Escape	Close the current overlay or dialog
Tab / Shift+Tab	Move focus between elements in an overlay

Spinner and progress

When simse is waiting for a response, an animated spinner appears in the status bar. The spinner indicates the current state:

• Thinking -- Waiting for the model to generate a response
• Executing -- Running a tool call
• Indexing -- Writing to the adaptive store

Press Ctrl+C at any time to interrupt the current operation.