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Terminal & tmux shortcuts

Kolega Code’s TUI uses some Shift-modified shortcuts (Shift+Enter, Shift+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+V). In a modern terminal with the Kitty keyboard protocol, those chords reach the app. Inside tmux or GNU screen, the multiplexer often sits between the terminal and the app and either drops modifiers or never forwards the extended key sequences — so Shift chords look like plain keys, or never arrive at all.

Kolega Code cannot invent modifier information the terminal never sends. Instead it provides portable fallbacks that work without Shift, plus optional tmux config if you want the original chords restored.

Portable shortcuts

Section titled “Portable shortcuts”
Action Preferred (capable terminals) Portable fallback
Send prompt Enter —
Insert newline Shift+Enter Ctrl+J or Ctrl+Enter
Toggle Plan ⇄ Build Shift+Tab /plan or /build
Paste image from system clipboard Ctrl+Shift+V Alt+V (Option+V on macOS when the terminal treats Option as Meta) or /attach with no path
Attach image from a file — /attach <path> or @image.png

On session start inside tmux/screen, the startup block prints a short reminder of these fallbacks.

Image paste notes

Section titled “Image paste notes”
  • /attach with no path reads an image from the system clipboard (same path as Ctrl+Shift+V / Alt+V). This is the most reliable option under plain tmux.
  • Clipboard image reading uses host tools independent of tmux:
    • macOS: osascript (built-in), or pngpaste if installed
    • Linux: xclip or wl-paste
    • Windows / WSL: PowerShell clipboard APIs
  • If Option+V types a special character (e.g. √) instead of pasting an image, your terminal is not sending Alt as a modifier. Prefer /attach, or enable “Option as Meta” / “Left Option key acts as +Esc” in the terminal settings.

Optional: restore Shift+Enter in tmux

Section titled “Optional: restore Shift+Enter in tmux”

With tmux 3.2+ and an outer terminal that supports extended keys, add to ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g extended-keys always
set -g extended-keys-format csi-u
set -as terminal-features 'xterm*:extkeys'

Then reload (tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf) or restart tmux.

Also make sure default-terminal / terminal-overrides match the outer terminal’s $TERM family (xterm-256color, xterm-ghostty, etc.) so the extkeys feature actually applies.

After that, Shift+Enter and similar chords often work again inside Kolega Code. If they still do not, keep using the portable fallbacks above.

Section titled “Related”