Your home

Opening your Space’s address brings you to Your home: the date and time, your sessions, and whatever else Kin keeps there for you. Ask Kin opens Kin’s panel with a fresh conversation in her workspace. It begins when you send your first message.

Trusted-project reading also lets you ask about an already-trusted project here, without starting work in that project.

Choose Kinra’s K at the top of the sidebar, named Kinra Space home, or Home to return from another page. Reloading returns to the page you were using. A page restored after the system ended its process also returns there if the tab kept its view. Leaving a conversation releases this browser’s attachment while Kin can keep working; your unsent words stay available.

Find your way around

The sidebar is a slim rail beside a column of your work. The rail’s icons open Home, Chat, Workspaces and, once Kin has made you one, Pages; point at or focus one for its name. Once your home can exchange letters, or has correspondence to keep, Letters sits under Chat. Its envelope is highlighted when a letter or an ask waits; open it to read, reply or write to someone new. Beside the rail, the column holds Live and your Pinned workspaces.

Over a workspace’s own pages the top bar names the workspace, then its views in a row: Overview, Files, Source and Terminal, with a line under the one you’re on. An app that opens inside your Space has an App view before them. Choose a view there to switch to it. The workspace’s name opens a menu of your pinned workspaces, with the one you’re in checked, and Workspaces… for the rest. Choosing another workspace, from that menu, the sidebar or search, keeps the view you’re on: from one workspace’s Source you land on the other’s Source, and from an app’s App view, another app that opens inside your Space opens at its own. Choosing the workspace you’re already in opens its Overview, and from a conversation the next workspace opens at its Overview. A new session you haven’t sent anything in goes with you instead: it becomes a new session in the workspace you choose, still on Chat, with what you typed added to any draft waiting for a new session there. Drafts in existing sessions stay with those sessions. Files you attached stay with the workspace you added them in, and a notice says so. In a narrow window or on a phone the views fold into one menu named for the view you’re on. The top bar names a workspace only over that workspace’s own pages; Home, Workspaces, Pages, the machine’s Terminal, Your machine, Settings and Connections show their own name, and a pinned row in the sidebar, or the search control, is the way back into a workspace. At the foot of the rail, Terminal is the machine’s own view of every workspace’s shells at once; it belongs to the machine rather than to one workspace, which is why it sits beside Your machine, which shows a mark when it has news. Apps sits between them when Docker is available or the Apps folder holds an app. Your picture opens your account menu: Connections, GitHub…, Settings, the Space user guide on this site, and Sign out.

At the end of the top bar, on every page, Show Kin opens Kin’s panel, and Ctrl+J (⌘J on a Mac) does the same from the keyboard. Chat gives that same conversation the whole page. Work in a project starts from that project’s New session.

A page’s own controls stand in the top bar, ahead of the search: what makes something new there, such as New workspace or Add an app…, and the page’s refresh where it has one, named for it, such as Refresh Overview, Refresh Files or Refresh Your machine.

In a wide window, over a workspace’s Overview, Files, Source and Terminal, and an app’s own view, the session you’re in floats over the page as a card, the way Kin’s panel does, and the page beneath stays in use. Its heading matches Kin’s: the workspace’s icon and the session’s title, then Open in Chat, which gives the session the whole page, Dock beside the page, which gives it a column of its own at the end of the page, and Hide the session. Docking makes the page fit into the remaining width, including the Terminal; floating leaves its width alone. Docked, it offers Float over the page instead. The key just before Show Kin, the sidebar’s key turned the other way, puts it away with Hide the session and brings it back with Show the session, with the cursor in its message box. From inside a floating session, Escape puts it away and returns the cursor to where it was. Space remembers whether you docked it, separately from Kin’s panel, and whether you put it away; opening a session brings it back. The command palette’s Hide or show the session beside the page does the same. Over a Terminal it stays away until you ask for it; see Terminal and machine.

Workspaces, Apps, Pages, Your machine, Settings and Connections open on their own, so the session never covers their buttons. The key, or choosing a session in Live or search, brings it over them. When Kin’s panel and the session are both open, they stand as a stack of cards; see Kin’s panel.

In a wide window, collapse the sidebar with the control at the start of the top bar or Ctrl+B (⌘B on a Mac): its column folds away and the rail stays, with a search control and your pinned workspaces’ squares. Space remembers your choice. If folding or expanding hides the item holding keyboard focus, focus moves to that control. Escape puts away a rail tooltip until you leave its item.

On phones, the navigation drawer holds the rail and the column. Open it with Open navigation at the start of the top bar, or Ctrl+B / ⌘B. Keyboard focus moves to the current page’s item, or the first available item, and the page behind waits until navigation closes. Escape, a tap on the dimmed page, a drag to close, or the same chord closes it and returns focus to the menu control. Choosing a page closes the drawer and moves focus to that page.

Drag the thin line between the sidebar and the page to make its column wider or narrower; it brightens when you point at it. From the keyboard, Tab to it and use the arrow keys: each press moves it a little, Shift moves it further, Home and End go to the narrowest and widest, and Enter (or a double click) puts it back. Space remembers the width. Kin’s panel and the session resize the same way, by their inner edge, and Space remembers their widths too. A view beside a conversation also resizes, but its width is not kept. A phone has nothing to resize.

The search control, or Ctrl+K / ⌘K, opens Search or ask Kin. Type a filename, page, session title, or action such as “history” or “Paper.” Select the matching row. A file opens in Files, in its own workspace, without starting a conversation. The palette can also send a question to Kin.

Live heads the sidebar’s column, above Pinned, and keeps open conversations from every workspace in reach. Every workspace has a heading and drawer, even with one session. Live has no total beside its name. Workspaces are ordered by their newest session, with newest first inside each. Choose a workspace heading to fold or open its drawer; its arrow shows when you point at it. From the keyboard, focus it and press Enter or Space.

Drawers start open and remember your choices. The group of the conversation you are viewing stays open without forgetting a fold you chose earlier. A closed heading shows its session count and strongest state, such as Needs approval. Status changes update those words without opening or moving the drawer. There is no additional … more fold.

Choose a session to open it. Beneath its title, a session says what is unusual: its state unless it is ready, Own copy and the copy’s name when it works in a copy, agents at work, and who else is using it. A session with nothing unusual says Ready and how long it has been open, and keeps a still grey line on its edge, so it never looks like a place. Point at any session for everything, its turns included. Rows keep their height as sessions change, so nothing below them moves. Its one … menu offers Rename…, Go to … with its workspace’s name, such as Go to Garden, Copy session ID, and End session, and stays visible on a touch screen. Copy session ID says Copied only once the clipboard has it. Escape closes an open menu without also putting away the phone’s navigation drawer. Session history beside Live finds earlier work across all workspaces, even when none is live, and Refresh sessions beside it reads them again. If your sessions cannot be read, Live says so with Try again, and keeps showing any sessions it still has. A pinned workspace’s … menu has New session and Session history…. A pinned portfolio’s drawer holds places, not sessions.

A live session carries its state as a light along its edge and, unless it is ready, in words beneath its title. The same light appears on its Overview row, Home card and palette result. With the sidebar folded, the search control carries the strongest state of all sessions. See session states.

The ⓘ beside a control gives a short explanation. Hover or focus it to read, tap to keep it open, and press Escape or tap elsewhere to close it.

Pin workspaces to the sidebar

Pin a workspace to keep it in the sidebar, under Live. The sidebar lists only what you pin; every workspace is on Workspaces and in Search or ask Kin. A pinned workspace is shown once, out of its portfolio’s drawer when the portfolio is pinned too. Its menu keeps New session and Session history…. Only the sidebar changes: the workspace’s folder and its portfolio stay exactly as they were. With nothing pinned yet, the sidebar says how to pin one. Each workspace wears the same icon in the sidebar, top bar, Overview, palette and Workspaces. Choose Choose icon… from its menu, choose the icon on its Overview, or find that action in the palette. Search the picker by name and choose an icon. A pinned workspace with no chosen icon keeps two letters in the folded rail.

To pin one, use any of these:

• On Workspaces, choose the pin at the end of its tile. The + beside Pinned in the sidebar takes you there, ready to find one by name. See Find a workspace.
• On the workspace’s Overview, choose the pin at the top. It fills while the workspace is pinned; choose it again to unpin it.
• On one of the workspace’s pages, open the palette and choose Pin … to the sidebar. Searching for “favorite” still finds it.
• In a pinned portfolio’s drawer, point at a workspace and choose …, then Pin to the sidebar. You can also right-click it, or focus it and press Shift+F10. On a phone the … is always shown.

A newly pinned workspace goes to the end of the list. To reorder, drag one up or down in the sidebar, or across Pinned on Workspaces: a line shows where it will land, and Escape cancels. Or choose …, then Move up or Move down; this works on a phone and from the keyboard. Unpin takes the workspace off the sidebar, or back into its pinned portfolio’s drawer.

When the sidebar is collapsed to its rail, your pinned workspaces’ squares sit under the search control. Hover or focus a square for its name, and choose it to open the workspace. The square of the workspace you are in is highlighted, and its edge carries the state of its sessions. If the window is too short for all of them, the last square shows how many more there are; choose it to expand the sidebar.

The command palette leads with them too: with nothing typed, Search or ask Kin lists your pinned workspaces first, in the same order, and the rest after them.

You should see: the workspace under Pinned in the sidebar and on Workspaces, in the same order on every device where you use Space. Anything you kept as a favorite before is pinned, in the same order.

What your home shows

Kin keeps your home: you say in a conversation what you would like there, and she does the making and the keeping. A new home is quiet: the Sessions card. Ask for another card, or agree when Kin offers to keep useful work there, and she places and arranges it:

Put a clock on my home with the time in Tokyo, and my notes next to my sessions.

Use Ask Kin for changes to your home. To talk about one card, choose the K in its header, named Ask Kin about Notes for a Notes card. It opens a conversation about that card; choosing it again returns to that conversation while it is still live. For a custom card, its files come with the draft. Add your request and send; opening the panel alone changes nothing, and words you already typed are kept.

To move a card, make it larger or smaller, change what it shows, or take it away, ask Kin. Sessions always stays, though Kin can move or resize it. The arrangement is an ordinary file at ~/Workspace/Kin/home.json. Kin changes it from her workspace; a conversation elsewhere can offer to continue there. The workspace’s own trust decision applies when you first send.

When Kin finishes a turn in her panel, Home checks its arrangement and custom cards at once. Kin changed your home announces a changed arrangement. Changes made elsewhere normally appear within a minute, or when you return Home.

An earlier board that you had changed yourself, by adding, moving, resizing, removing or setting up a card, keeps those cards, and Kin arranges them from now on. An earlier board you had never changed now opens quiet; ask Kin for any card you miss.

Cards fill the width of the page: one column on a phone, and more as the screen widens, up to six on a very wide display. Each card takes whole columns and rows, one to four columns wide and one to three rows tall, within what suits it: a clock stops at two of each. A card that fits an earlier gap fills it, so the board packs without holes. The heading stays where it is, and the cards scroll below it. On a phone, cards stack in one column.

Sessions gives each conversation its own card: its title, place and state. Continue · … returns to your last conversation, live or ended. Other live sessions follow, with those needing you first. A session that finished while you were elsewhere, or while you were away from it on screen, stays Finished until you open it or come back to it. Session history… at the foot finds earlier conversations. These are the other cards Kin can place:

• Clock: the time where you are. Kin can show seconds, use 12- or 24-hour time, and add up to three other time zones.
• Notes: a workspace’s notes and tasks, described below.
• Recent files: opens a file; its separate Ask Kin about control, named for the file, adds it to a message. It lists as many whole rows as its card holds, up to eight unless you ask Kin for more. Notes and Tasks are excluded before that limit, so frequent edits to them do not crowd out other files.
• Kept views: returns to views you kept on Home. While you keep any, the card appears if Home has room, even before Kin has placed it. Ask Kin to choose its place.
• Agents: lists the agents running in your terminals and opens the one you choose; Open Terminal at its foot opens the terminal itself.
• Shortcuts: New workspace, Files, Terminal and Source.
• Machine: uptime, available storage, Tailscale and Docker at a glance. Docker reads Ready with the number of containers running beside it. An Update figure appears only while an update is ready. Choosing the card opens Your machine.
• Welcome: a greeting and the note you keep in Settings.
• A custom card Kin makes for you; see Views and custom cards.

A card shows what fits the size it has, and an empty one says so in a line. An empty Sessions card offers New session. A card that could not load shows its own Try again; retry that card without reloading unsaved work elsewhere. Shortcuts and an agent outside a project use the Home workspace, even after you have visited another project.

Write notes and keep track of tasks

Every workspace’s Overview has a Notes panel, and Kin can put the same card on your home when you ask. It is two ordinary files in the workspace being shown, behind one toggle: on the Home workspace they are ~/Workspace/Scratchpad.md and ~/Workspace/Tasks.md, and in a project they are that project’s own, so a project keeps its own notes and its own board. Home’s Notes and Recent files use the Home workspace, ~/Workspace, whatever project you last visited. Kin can read and edit both files.

Notes shows the text of Scratchpad.md. It saves after a one-second pause and when you leave the field; wait for its saved state before reloading. It fills its card, however tall the card is.

Tasks is a small board of cards in To do, Doing and Done over Tasks.md, and the toggle shows how many cards are still to do. With room, the columns stand side by side; in a narrow card, or on a phone, the buttons above the list show one column at a time.

1. Type in Add to To do… and press Enter. A column’s + aims the field at that column instead.
2. Tick a card when it is finished. It moves to the top of Done; untick it there and it returns to the first column.
3. Drag a card to another column or another place in its own. The ⋯ on a card does the same from the keyboard or a touch screen, with Move to…, Move up, Move down, Edit and Delete. Double-click a card to edit its words; Enter saves and Escape cancels.
4. Clear finished on the Done column removes its finished cards. Undo appears after a delete or a clear and stays until the file next changes.

Every change to the board saves at once, and its file is created the first time you add a card. Each ## Heading is a column and each - [ ] item beneath it is a card; lines indented under a card are its notes and steps, shown as a count such as 1/3, and they move with it. Use the file button to open it and add, rename or reorder columns, or write notes under a card. Anything else you write in either file is left as it is.

Ask Kin what you are working on, or to tidy the board, and the open card shows her changes within a few seconds. The board’s Ask Kin about these tasks attaches its file to a draft in that workspace’s conversation; review and send when ready. If another editor changes either file, Space shows the newer text: choose Use the newer text to accept it, or Keep mine after checking what would be replaced. After accepting newer text, Undo restores and saves your previous words until the file next changes. An unsaved-change prompt offers Stay so you can retry a failed save.

A Notes card on your home can use other files inside its workspace; ask Kin to point it at them.

For a line of your own on the home itself, write it in Settings → A note for your home, up to 1,000 characters, and choose Save note. The Welcome card shows it beneath a greeting once Kin has placed that card for you.

Change appearance and alerts

Settings → Appearance offers Graphite, Paper, or Device. Device follows your system’s light or dark setting. Settings → Alerts chooses whether Space makes a sound or shows a system notification when a session needs you.

For a custom card of your own, continue with Views and custom cards.