Keyboard shortcuts

Settings → Keyboard shortcuts shows the current reference with keys labelled for your platform. The command palette uses the same command registry. Search for an action or a shortcut to find its control.

Action	Windows / Linux	Mac
Search files, sessions and commands	Ctrl+K	⌘K
Show Kin’s panel, or hide it from inside	Ctrl+J	⌘J
Collapse or expand the sidebar; open or close phone navigation	Ctrl+B	⌘B
Send a message on a desktop keyboard	Enter	Enter
Add a line on a desktop keyboard	Shift+Enter	Shift+Enter
Go to file in the workspace	Ctrl+P	⌘P
Save the open file in Files	Ctrl+S	⌘S
Rename the chosen file or folder in Files	F2	F2
Ask Kin from the open palette	Ctrl+Enter	⌘Enter
Recall earlier messages at the start of the composer	Up / Down	Up / Down
Fold a question or approval Kin is waiting on	Escape	Escape
Move through plan choices and approve the selected choice	Arrows, then Enter	Arrows, then Enter
Open an item’s context menu	Shift+F10	Shift+F10 where the keyboard supports it

Context matters

• Phone navigation: Ctrl+B / ⌘B opens or closes the drawer. Opening moves focus into navigation; Escape or the chord closes it and returns focus to the menu control. Choosing a page moves focus there instead.
• Terminal: Ctrl+B is the terminal’s own prefix key, listed in Settings as Give the terminal a command, not the sidebar control. In the machine’s Terminal, Ctrl+B then w picks a workspace and Ctrl+B then b shows or hides its sidebar. While the terminal has the keyboard, Ctrl+J and ⌘J do not open Kin’s panel; use Show Kin in the top bar.
• Kin’s panel: Ctrl+J / ⌘J opens it at Kin’s waiting question when there is one, or with the cursor in her message box, and hides it again when pressed inside it. Escape first folds a waiting request. Press it again to hide a floating panel or phone sheet; a docked column stays until you choose Hide Kin. Some browsers use Ctrl+J for their Downloads page. Space asks for the key first, but where a browser keeps it, use Show Kin in the top bar or command palette.
• Session beside the page: use Hide the session or Show the session just before Kin’s door, or search for Hide or show the session beside the page in the palette. It has no keyboard chord. Showing it puts the cursor in its message box. Escape first folds a waiting request, then puts away a floating session and returns the cursor to where it was; a docked column stays until you choose Hide the session. Where the session and Kin’s panel form a stack, Tab to the heading behind and press Enter to bring it forward. Escape inside the front card puts that card away after its waiting request has had the key.
• Source: Up and Down, Home and End move through checkpoint rows; Enter opens a story and Escape closes it. The map’s key, under What the marks mean, is also one Tab stop once unfolded: arrow keys move, Enter selects a mark to find, and Escape lets go.
• Touch composer: Enter inserts a line; use Send message, or Ctrl+Enter / ⌘Enter with a supported keyboard, to submit. With the draft empty, Recall last message stands in for Up, and tapping a / row fills the command in so you can add arguments before sending it.
• Command palette: arrows select, Enter runs the selected row, and Escape closes it. The pointer chooses a row only when it moves onto it, not when the list changes under a still pointer. The Ask Kin: “…” row offers the typed question even when results match; tap it to ask on a phone. Ctrl+Enter / ⌘Enter starts a new session and sends that question.
• On a Mac: Space’s shortcuts answer only to ⌘. Ctrl+K and Ctrl+B keep their usual meaning in the message field and every other text field: delete to the end of the line, and move back a character.
• Your home: Tab to Ask Kin, or to a card’s K, named Ask Kin about Notes for a Notes card, to ask for changes to your home. Sessions stays on Home.
• Pinned: Escape cancels dragging a pinned workspace in the sidebar or on Workspaces. Its menu, from Shift+F10, moves it up or down instead.
• Workspaces: / goes to Find a workspace, and Escape clears it.
• Files: the tree is one stop for Tab. Up and Down move, Right opens a folder and Left closes it, Home and End reach the ends, and typing a name’s first letters moves to it. Enter opens a file into its text and Space opens it and stays in the tree. Delete, or ⌘⌫ on a Mac, offers to move the chosen item to Trash. Escape cancels a new name. In the editor Tab indents, so press Escape and then Tab to leave it. Ctrl+P / ⌘P goes to a file only on a workspace’s pages; elsewhere it prints. Save changes is the visible alternative to Ctrl+S / ⌘S, and Move to… to dragging.
• Spreadsheets: a workbook’s sheet tabs are one Tab stop; Left and Right, Home and End move between sheets. Tab on to the table, where the arrow keys choose a cell and the line beneath reads it out, and Escape lets the cell go.
• Pages: Tab to a card’s name and press Enter to open the page alone, or Shift+F10 for its menu. Ask Kin is its own stop at the card’s foot.
• Model picker: Tab reaches the model list; Up and Down move within it, Home and End reach its ends, and Enter or Space selects. Tap a row on a phone.
• Command output: Tab reaches your running command’s separate Stop button even while its output is folded. Enter, Space or a tap stops it. For Kin’s background commands, open Commands above the message box or Work in the conversation header (the checklist icon on a phone). Open a command’s row with Enter, Space or a tap to read and copy its output. Its Stop… asks for confirmation and needs the keyboard for that session.
• Page navigation: the first Tab reveals Skip to content. Choose it to pass the sidebar and reach the current page.
• Live drawers: Tab to a workspace heading and press Enter or Space to fold or open its conversations. Its session menu offers Rename…; Enter saves a name, and Escape cancels the dialog without folding the session.
• Menus and hints: Escape dismisses them without also closing the phone’s navigation drawer. Item menus also support arrows, Home, End, and typing to find an item. An unavailable menu action stays reachable and explains why it cannot run.

Keyboard controls have visible alternatives for touch. On narrow or touch palettes, key hints may be hidden to leave room for the action names.

Gestures

Gesture	What it does
Pull in from the left edge of the screen	Opens the navigation drawer, in the installed app only
Drag the drawer, or the dimmed page beside it	Closes the drawer
Pull Kin’s sheet down by its grip or top bar	Hides Kin’s panel on a phone
Long press in the Terminal	Your device’s own selection and copy menu
Drag the rule between two panes	Resizes them; the handle also takes arrow keys

A browser tab leaves the screen edge to the browser’s own Back gesture.

A fictional local session list. The same palette finds commands and can ask Kin; selecting a command and submitting a question have different effects.

See Conversations before using the palette to send a question.