Terminal UI

A rich chat experience for Mind CLI with syntax highlighting, interactive panels, and a polished terminal-native interface

The terminal UI is the default chat interface for Mind CLI. It provides syntax-highlighted markdown rendering, interactive overlay panels, visual tool progress, and a full set of keyboard shortcuts for navigating your session.

Quick start

Launch a chat session:

mind chat

To use the classic interface instead:

mind --classic

Chat experience

Messages stream incrementally as the agent works. Responses render with full markdown support: syntax-highlighted code blocks, tables, lists, blockquotes, and nested formatting. Terminals that support synchronised output get flicker-free updates.

Tool display

Each tool type has a dedicated visual component (shell commands, file operations, grep, glob, and more). While a tool executes, you see:

A descriptive title and spinner
A status icon on completion: ✓ for success, ✗ for error, ⏸ when awaiting approval
Collapsible output (press Ctrl+O to toggle)
Progress bars for long-running MCP operations

Thinking display

When the agent reasons through a complex request, its reasoning (“thinking”) blocks stream inline above the response. This is on by default (chat.showThinking).

Interacting with the agent

Approval UX

When a tool requires permission, a notification bar appears above your input with Yes, Trust, and No options. If multiple tools need permission at the same time, approvals queue and appear one at a time.

Input methods

Feature	How
Newline	Shift+Enter, Ctrl+J, or Alt+Enter
File/directory reference	@path with tab-complete picker
Paste image	/paste or paste from clipboard
Command history	Up/Down arrows
Reverse history search	Ctrl+R
Multi-line editor	/editor opens $EDITOR

UI components

Overlay panels — Commands like /help, /context, /tools, and /mcp open as scrollable overlay panels dismissible with Esc. Commands that answer a question rather than offer a view — /context, /hooks and /knowledge — print into the conversation instead, so their output stays in the transcript.
Activity tray — Press Ctrl+X to see task progress and queued messages.
Fleet monitor — Press Ctrl+G to monitor subagent activity and spawned sessions in real time.
Spec review — When a spec run reaches a phase checkpoint, press Ctrl+X to read the document in place and stage comments against lines.

Slash commands

Command	Description
/help	All available commands
/context	Context breakdown with per-file token percentages
/usage	Usage limits with progress bar and credit balance
/chat	Switch between previous sessions via a fuzzy picker
/plan	Enter plan mode (also Shift+Tab)
/agent	Switch between agents
/model	Switch the active model
/mcp	View MCP servers and registry status
/tools	View and reset tool permissions
/guide	Switch to the Mind guide agent for help and onboarding
/theme	Switch the colour palette — dark, light, safe, or system. Applies on restart.

Terminal features

Feature	Details
Progress indicator	Terminal tab/title bar shows agent state (streaming, pending approval, error)
Clickable hyperlinks	Markdown links are clickable in modern terminals
Theme detection	Automatically detects dark/light mode from terminal background

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Shift+Tab	Enter plan mode
Ctrl+G	Open fleet monitor for subagents
Ctrl+X	Toggle activity tray (or spec review at checkpoint)
Ctrl+O	Expand/collapse tool output and thinking traces
Esc	Close panels, cancel agent, clear prompt queue