Workspace

Projects

Use the plus button or Cmd/Ctrl+P to create a project. A new project asks how to start: Open a folder, Home directory, or one of the server's recent project folders. Open a folder is a single path field that lists matching folders as you type and completes like a shell; the project is named after the folder you choose. If a project already has that folder open, Terminay switches to it instead.

Click a project tab to switch to it, drag tabs to reorder them, and double-click one to rename it, set a colour or icon, or change its root folder. Hover a project tab that is not active to peek at its folders and jump straight to one of its terminals. Drop a terminal tab on a project tab to move the terminal to that project.

The house icon before the first project tab opens Home. Closing the last project in the main window leaves it open on Home; a popped-out window closes with its last project.

Folders

The left column lists the project's folders as cards, each with its terminals and tabs beneath it and a New terminal row at the end.

• General is created with the project and holds new terminals by default. In a Git project it is the checkout at the project root.
• Linked folders appear for every other Git worktree. See Worktrees.
• Plain folders are yours: choose New folder, then rename, reorder, or delete them.

Select a folder to show its layout, or a row to focus that terminal or tab. Drag a terminal row onto another folder to move it, drag a card by its title to reorder folders, and double-click a terminal row to rename it. Rows take their tab's colour. A folder with nothing open shows a placeholder with New terminal. Deleting a folder that still holds panels asks whether to move them to General or close them.

Hover a New terminal row for a button per installed agent, such as Claude Code or Codex, beside the default shell. Each starts that agent in a new terminal in the folder. On touch devices the buttons are always shown.

The left column has two tabs: Tabs, the folder list, and Agents, the project's agents. Toggle the column with the button at the leading end of the project bar.

Terminals And Tabs

Create a terminal with Cmd/Ctrl+T. It lands in the selected folder and starts in that folder's working directory.

• Split the active terminal below with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+-.
• Split the active terminal to the right with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+\.
• Close the active terminal, file, or folder tab with Cmd/Ctrl+W. With no tab open, Cmd/Ctrl+W closes the project.
• Pop the active tab into its own window with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P.
• Switch terminals from the keyboard with Option+Tab on macOS and in the browser, or Ctrl+Tab on Windows and Linux. Keep holding the modifier, press Tab to move on (add Shift to go back), and release to switch.

A program can set its terminal's tab title with the standard OSC 0 and OSC 2 escape sequences. Your own name for a tab takes precedence.

Terminals Survive Restarts

Shells run in a small session holder that outlives the server and the desktop app. When the server restarts, for an update, a crash, or terminay daemon upgrade, your projects come back with the same terminals, layout, titles, scrollback, and running programs. Output produced while nothing was attached is replayed.

Quitting Terminay Desktop keeps terminals running in the background. If any terminal is busy, the quit prompt asks whether to keep them or end them. Restart to update always keeps them. Terminals left with nothing attached end after a limit, five minutes by default; set Keep terminals running after quit in Settings → Shell, up to Until this computer restarts. A session that ended meanwhile keeps its tab, with its last output and a notice that it has ended.

Tab Styling

Double-click a terminal tab to edit its name, one-character icon, and colour. Terminal tabs inherit the project colour by default. Moving the hue slider gives the tab its own colour, and the edit window can restore project-colour inheritance.

Project Roots

The project root is the folder a project opened on, and the checkout General represents. Change it from the project edit window, or use Cmd/Ctrl+R to make the active terminal's current directory the project root. Blank values and ~ resolve to your home folder.

Project Sidebar

The sidebar on the right of the panel area has three groups, chosen from its tab bar: Explorer (Files and Changes), Documentation, and Agents. It follows the selected folder, so Files shows that folder's root and Changes shows its worktree's uncommitted changes. Toggle it with Cmd/Ctrl+O or the button at the trailing end of the project bar.

Files shows Git new and modified colouring and an icon per file type, and opens files on double-click. Right-click to create, rename, or delete files and folders, copy a path, open a folder as a tab, open a shell there, or reveal it in your OS. Drag a pane's handle to reorder panes within a group, and drag the separators to resize them. Column widths are remembered and shared by every project.

Status Bar

The strip along the bottom of the window describes the focused terminal: a miniature of the split layout with the focused pane highlighted, the terminal's title, its working directory as a breadcrumb, and the Git branch of that directory, with counts of uncommitted changes and commits ahead of the default branch. It takes the active project's colour.

The right side shows remote access for the active tab's server. The dot is red when the Local server is not exposed, grey when no remote device is connected, and blue when at least one is, with an icon per device. Click it to open the connections menu. Toggle the bar with Show Status Bar in the View menu or the Command Bar; the choice is saved per device.