The viewer
When you are watching or driving a node in tmux, read this page because it lists the viewer controls, slash commands, and the difference between a prompt, a steer, and an interrupt.
You can read a node's live conversation, send it more work, interrupt it, search its transcript, and open canvas tools without running another agent process. crtr surface attach to <node-id> opens the viewer in the current terminal pane; crtr surface node focus <node-id> brings the node's managed viewer into view.
The viewer is a client of the broker. Detaching or quitting the viewer leaves the broker running. The default controls below can be changed in ~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json.
Send a message or interrupt work
Type in the editor and press Enter. When the agent is idle, Enter sends a prompt. While it is streaming, Enter sends a steer: an instruction for the current turn. The dedicated follow-up action has no default key binding; if you bind it, it sends a follow-up frame and clears the editor. Use a steer when the current answer needs to change; wait until idle when you want a normal next prompt.
Press Escape during a streaming turn to abort it. Press Control+C once to clear the editor. Press it a second time within one second to cancel a streaming turn. When nothing is running, the second Control+C does not cancel anything.
Viewer controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Control+D | Detach from the viewer. |
| Escape | Abort a streaming turn; otherwise use the editor's normal escape behavior. |
| Control+C | Clear the editor; repeat within one second to cancel a streaming turn. |
| Control+Z | Suspend the viewer. |
| Shift+Tab | Cycle the thinking level. |
| Control+P / Shift+Control+P | Move to the next / previous model. |
| Control+L | Open the model selector. |
| Control+O | Toggle tool output. |
| Control+T | Toggle thinking. |
| Control+G | Open the external editor. |
| Alt+Up | Restore queued messages. |
| Alt+V / Control+V | Paste an image. |
| Alt+Enter / Shift+Enter | Insert a newline in the editor. |
| Alt+G | Toggle the canvas graph. |
| Alt+Shift+K | Open keyboard help. |
| Alt+U | Jump to pending human requests. |
| Alt+M / Alt+Shift+M | Select the next / previous model-ladder rung. |
| Alt+Shift+H | Inspect the loaded slash command. |
| Alt+Shift+R | Review a transcript file. |
| Control+F | Search profile files. |
| Alt+/ | Search the displayed transcript. |
| Shift+Up / Shift+Down | Scroll one transcript line. |
| Page Up / Page Down | Scroll one transcript page. |
| Shift+End | Return to the live end of the transcript. |
| Alt+Shift+O | Toggle mouse reporting. |
| Alt+Shift+Y | Copy the newest visible message. |
While transcript search is open, press n or Shift+n for the next or previous match, / to edit the query, and Escape to close search.
Press Alt+C to open crouter's action menu, or type /menu if Option/Alt does not work in your terminal yet (on a Mac, Option must be set to send Alt; crtr sys setup explains how for your terminal). The status line's bottom segment reminds you: Alt+C menu (or /menu) · Alt+I inbox, rendered from your actual bindings. Its Attach actions menu offers the same everyday controls: detach, clear or cancel, graph, help, inbox, pending requests, model changes, profile-file search, and transcript search. Alt+] and Alt+[ move to the next and previous node; Alt+I opens the inbox.
Slash commands
Type / in the editor to see the available commands. These commands are provided by crouter's viewer:
| Command | What it opens or changes |
|---|---|
/clear | Clear the conversation display. |
/menu | Open the crouter action menu (same as Alt+C). |
/graph | Open the canvas graph. |
/inbox | Open the human inbox. |
/promote [kind] | Promote the current node, optionally selecting a kind. |
/resume | Open the canvas navigator to choose a node. |
/resume-session [session-path] | Switch to the supplied saved session file. |
/context | Open node context and reports. |
/plugins | Open plugins. |
/node-metadata | Show node metadata. |
/mcp [server] | Open MCP controls, optionally for one server. |
/rename <name> | Rename the current node. |
/color <color|none> | Set or clear the node color. |
/mouse | Toggle mouse support. |
/copy-message | Copy a message. |
/copy-tool | Copy tool output. |
/copy-transcript | Copy the transcript. |
/fold-tools | Fold or unfold tool output. |
The viewer also provides these pi commands: /settings, /model, /scoped-models, /export, /import, /share, /copy, /name, /session, /changelog, /hotkeys, /fork, /clone, /tree, /login, /logout, /new, /compact, /reload, and /quit. /quit detaches the viewer but leaves the shared broker running.
Use Canvas and dashboard when the conversation leads you to another node, and Human inbox when the agent needs your answer.
Your first crtr session
When you have installed crtr and want to start an agent conversation, read this page because one command, crtr, sets up the machine on first run and opens a conversation.
Canvas and dashboard
When you need to see what your agents are doing or reopen one, read this page because it connects the canvas views to the commands that inspect and revive a node.