Skip to main content
cortex with a terminal attached starts the interactive UI. It takes the full viewport by default (the alternate screen) and gives you three things: a timeline of the conversation and the agent’s work, a composer at the bottom, and a footer with the model, the mode, and the most useful shortcut.
Cortex CLI empty Agent composer with the model chip on its border

The empty composer: > with a block caret, the placeholder “Plan, search, build anything”, the mode on the top border, the model chip Cortex Mini 1 (medium) on the bottom border, and the footer hints.

​
Starting it

The TUI needs a terminal on both stdin and stdout; if either is redirected it refuses to start and points you at cortex run or cortex exec.

​
The welcome splash

Before the first turn the timeline shows two lines — Welcome to Cortex, the coding agent CLI and v0.1.x · / commands · @ files · ! shell · & cloud — plus a first-run tips panel. After your first turn the splash is dropped; an empty session is composer and footer only.

​
Timeline rows

Tool rows collapse to a summary; with the timeline focused, press e to expand or collapse the selected one.
Cortex CLI timeline with Read, Grep, and Shell tool rows and a failing test result

Tool tiles: a grouped “3 tool calls” header, Read and Grep rows with their summaries, and a Shell row whose failing test is quoted beneath it.

Cortex CLI edit tile showing a unified diff hunk

An Edit tile: the unified diff with a dim gutter, red removals, green additions, and a +2 −1 stat.

​
The status line

While a turn runs, a line above the composer shows a spinner, the stage — Thinking, Executing <tool>, Streaming, Delegation — the elapsed time, tokens used, and esc to interrupt.

​
The composer

  • > with a block caret; the dim placeholder Plan, search, build anything until you type.
  • Enter sends. Shift+Enter (or Alt+Enter) inserts a newline. Up / Down walk your prompt history.
  • Type / for slash commands; type @ to reference a file or symbol; both autocomplete in a popup. A line starting with / that is not a known command is sent to the agent as an ordinary message.
  • ! runs a shell command directly. & prefixes a task to hand off to Cortex Cloud — the timeline shows Handed off to Cortex Cloud with the agent and branch, and /jobs follows it.
  • Submit while a turn is running and the message is queued — the composer reads Add a follow-up — Enter to queue and shows how many are waiting.
Cortex CLI composer with a prompt being typed

Typing: the placeholder is gone, the caret follows the text, and the footer switches to Enter:send · Alt+Enter:newline.

Cortex CLI with a running Shell tool and two queued follow-ups

Two follow-ups queued behind a running Shell command — sent when the current step finishes. ↑ edits a queued item.

Cortex CLI showing Handed off to Cortex Cloud with agent, branch, and follow links

A hand-off: & fix the flaky login redirect test and open a PR — the timeline shows the Cloud agent id, its branch, and where to follow it.

​
Footer

Left: the model, the mode, and remaining context — Cortex Mini 1 · Agent · 92% context. Right: one shortcut hint — shift+tab to cycle modes, or the palette’s own keys while it is open. A token counter (14K / 500K) sits top right.

​
Modes and autonomy

Shift+Tab cycles Agent → Plan → Ask. /mode opens the same picker; /permissions sets Read-only, Smart, or Full access; /plan drafts a plan before writing any code. Approvals appear inline as numbered choices. Everything about these controls is on Modes and permissions.

​
Panels

Most of the surface area is one key or one slash command away:

​
Interrupting and quitting

  • Esc interrupts the current turn. The timeline records × Stopped; the CLI aborts its stream and tells the runtime to cancel.
  • Esc twice quickly opens the rewind overlay to step back or fork. See Sessions.
  • Ctrl+Q or /quit quits. Ctrl+C force-quits.
Cortex CLI after interrupting a turn — × Stopped

After Esc: the Shell row is marked stopped, the timeline records × Stopped with the time and tokens spent, and the composer offers ↑ to edit your last message.

​
When the service is unreachable

The TUI says The coding service is temporarily unavailable and offers to retry — your work so far is saved in this session. That is the whole message by design: Cortex does not surface provider, SDK, or transport names. See Troubleshooting.

​
Display

/theme switches between Cortex Night (default), Cortex Day, Ocean Dark, and Monokai. /compact toggles a denser layout. The accent is Cortex green #1F4945 on the focused control; the rest of the chrome is grey. See Extend → Themes. The chrome holds its shape in a small terminal. At 40 columns by 12 rows the composer keeps its border, mode label, model chip, and footer hint:
Cortex CLI empty composer rendered in a 40 by 12 terminal

The empty composer at 40×12 — the same chrome, folded to a small window.

​
Related