The workbench

The workbench is where you watch and steer the crew from a terminal. It runs in cland’s own pinned Neovim with a clean configuration: no Neovim experience is needed, and your own Neovim setup is never loaded.

cland           # anywhere inside a project
cland open      # the same; also takes a directory

Both start the project’s hub if it is not running, then open the workbench on the project’s root. Quitting the workbench leaves the hub and the crew running.

Tip

Prefer a browser? The web workbench shows the same state, live, in any browser and on your phone. Use both at once.

Layout

 cland my-project │ Explorer        ● Coordinator · Claude Code · busy   ✓ needs you 0   sessions 4
 ITEMS ␣i    │ centre view                          │ TOPICS (dock) ␣T
             │ explorer · thread · session terminal ├──────────────────
             │ board · graph · plan · events · log  │ INBOX ␣n
             │                                      │ or SESSIONS ␣s
             ├──────────────────────────────────────┤ or TOPICS ␣t
             │ composer (threads)                   │
 <context> │ hub: connected │ sessions: 1 busy · 0 waiting · 3 idle │ key hints

• The top bar shows the project, the centre view, the Coordinator and its state (a red “no coordinator” when nobody holds the role), the needs you count and the live sessions.
• The centre shows one view at a time. ␣␣ returns to the previous one.
• The left panel is the items panel.
• The right panel is the inbox, the sessions or the topics. Topics can also dock above it.
• The status line shows the view’s context, the hub’s state, session counts, the latest notice and key hints.

Colours carry meaning everywhere: amber for what needs you, teal for work in progress, green for done, red for a failure or a dead session. Each role has its own colour in threads: you blue, the Coordinator teal, Implementers violet, Reviewers pink, QA sky.

Keys you need first

Space is the leader key, written ␣. ␣? lists every key in the workbench.

Key	What it does
␣p	The palette: search everything and run any action.
␣g	General, your thread with the Coordinator.
␣n	The inbox. ␣N opens it full width.
␣s	The sessions panel.
␣e	The explorer.
␣␣	Back to the previous centre view.
C-h C-j C-k C-l	Move focus left, down, up, right, in every mode, terminals included.
1–9, i	On an ask: pick an option, or type a free answer.
Enter, Shift+Enter	In the composer: send, or a new line.

The explorer

The explorer is the default centre view: the current release as an outline, its epics and their tasks, with folded roots for the categories, the unscheduled items and other releases. A card on the right follows the cursor: the item’s summary, status, progress, latest verdict, relations, branch and latest verification result.

Key	What it does
j k	Next or previous item.
l h	Unfold or step into a node; fold or go to the parent.
Enter	Focus the card. h returns to the tree.
s	Scope the tree to this node. ␣␣ goes back.
D	Hide or show done items.
A	Show closed releases and closed root items.
m	Message the Coordinator in General about this item, with its context attached.
M	Message the Coordinator in the item’s own topic, creating it if needed.
zb	Unfold the agents’ text of the item.

The explorer changes nothing by hand. To reorder, re-parent or plan items, select them (V for a range) and press m: the Coordinator receives your text plus one line per item and acts through the tracker.

Panels

Items panel, ␣i

A vertical board of the current release: sections in progress, review, qa, ready, planned, each with a count. Backlog is folded; done is hidden and counted. The first unblocked planned task carries a teal next mark. Each row shows the status glyph, id, title, claim or verdict mark and the verified/total criteria.

Glyph	Meaning
○	planned or backlog
◐	in progress
◉ amber	review or qa
◉ green	ready
●	done
◌	blocked
✗	last verdict not clear
?	open ask

1–6 switch filters (board, in work, needs you, done, map, all). e and E change the release in scope. K, J and T move an item before or after its sibling, or to the top: that is how you set priority.

Sessions panel, ␣s

The Accounts block comes first, with each account’s usage windows (Accounts and limits), then the verification queue line, then the sessions grouped as yours (your Aides), waiting, busy and idle. Stopped sessions fold under more (N). The selected row expands to its harness, model, account, state and usage, and to the command a pending approval waits on.

Key	What it does
Enter	Attach the session’s terminal in the centre.
C-v	Attach it in a split beside the centre.
l	Launch a session.
a	Launch an Aide (␣A from anywhere).
x	Stop the session, after a confirmation.
r	Resume a stopped session on its harness conversation.
d	Archive a stopped session. A shows the archive.
c	Show what the harness adapter reports reliably.

Inbox, ␣n

Only what needs you, in four sections: asks and approvals, plan approvals, requests to you, messages to you. Each row shows how long it has waited.

Key	What it does
1–9	Answer the selected ask with that option.
i	Give a free answer.
Enter	Open the ask’s topic, attach the session waiting on a command approval, or open a plan.
r	Reply to a request or message.
d	Decline a request, or mark a message read.
A	Show what left the inbox in the last seven days, and why.

With nothing waiting it says ✓ nothing needs you. The line below the sections counts new events since your last look; e opens the events view.

Topics, ␣t

Topics grouped as needs you, open and closed, with unread badges. n creates a topic, c closes one, r resolves its wait. ␣T docks topics above the inbox.

Centre views

Key	View
␣e	Explorer and card.
␣g	General. Any topic opens from the topics panel or the palette.
␣b	Board: one column per status.
␣G	Task graph by blocking edges (experimental).
gp	The plan of the epic under the cursor. a approves it when approval is yours.
␣E	Events view: everything that happened, newest first, with filters.
␣L	The Agents log: agent-to-agent traffic.
␣R	The rulebook. a adds a rule.
␣N	The inbox full width.

From any panel or view, gi, gt and gs jump to the item, topic or session under the cursor: an item’s claiming session, a session’s item, an item’s topic.

The palette

␣p opens one floating search over everything: actions, items, sessions, artifacts and topics. Every action shows its key, so the palette is also how you learn the keys. Prefixes narrow it to one kind:

Prefix	Searches
>	actions
#	items
@	sessions
~	artifacts (␣a opens the palette here)
/	topics

Enter runs or opens, C-v opens in a split, Tab switches kind, Esc closes. Answering an open ask is one action per option.

Writing to the crew

The composer sits under a thread. Enter sends, Shift+Enter (or Alt+Enter) adds a line. A message goes to the Coordinator unless you mention someone: @reviewer, @qa or a session name. ␣P opens a full buffer for a long prompt.

Attaching to a session’s terminal

Every session runs its harness’s own TUI. Enter on a session row attaches to it in the centre, C-v in a split. You see exactly what the harness shows and can type into it.

• C-\ leaves terminal mode. Esc always goes to the harness.
• C-h C-j C-k C-l move focus out of the terminal.
• Closing the terminal ends only the attach, never the session.

Approvals a harness asks for in its own TUI are answered there. A session waiting on one shows in the inbox and the sessions panel with the command it waits on; Enter attaches to it.

From a plain shell, print the attach command and run it yourself:

cland session attach impl-42

Presets

Three presets set up the screen for a stage of work. They are starting points, not modes: toggle anything afterwards.

Command	Layout
:Cland preset charting	Items beside General, the right panel hidden. For planning with the Aide or the Coordinator.
:Cland preset watch	Items, General, topics docked above the inbox. For following a build.
:Cland preset steady	The board and the inbox. For a crew that runs on its own.

Panel sizes, the chosen release and the explorer’s folds are saved per machine in .cland/ui.json.

Terminal notes

• Shift+Enter must reach the terminal as its own key. cland doctor warns when a Ghostty keybind = shift+enter=text:\n line turns it into C-j, and about a tty erase character of ^H.

• The C-h C-j C-k C-l chords use the English layout. Normal-mode letters work in other layouts once you name them in config.toml:

  [keys]
  layouts = ["ru"]