Keyboard Shortcuts

August 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

This page covers the main chat input and common interactive views. Some specialised screens may show additional inline controls.

Submitting & Multi-line Input

ActionShortcutNotes
Submit promptEnter
New lineCtrl+JOfficial supported shortcut
New line fallbackShift+EnterTerminal-dependent fallback only

Note on multi-line input: Ctrl+J is the only officially supported newline shortcut. Some terminals also send Shift+Enter as a newline, but that behavior is terminal-dependent and should be treated as a fallback only.

Cursor Movement

ActionShortcut
Move cursor leftLeft Arrow
Move cursor rightRight Arrow
Move cursor to start of lineCtrl+A
Move cursor to end of lineCtrl+E
Move cursor back one characterCtrl+B
Move cursor forward one characterCtrl+F

Text Editing

ActionShortcut
Delete character before cursorBackspace
Delete character at cursorDelete
Delete previous wordCtrl+W
Delete from cursor to start of lineCtrl+U
Delete from cursor to end of lineCtrl+K
Clear inputEsc (twice)

Autocomplete

ActionShortcut
Accept file/command suggestionTab
Navigate file suggestionsUp/Down
Exit file autocompleteSpace

When typing @ for file mentions or / for commands, Tab accepts the current suggestion. If there are multiple command matches, the first Tab shows the completion list and pressing Tab again accepts the first result.

Image Attachments

ActionShortcut
Paste image from clipboardCtrl+V
Remove last attached imageCtrl+X

Ctrl+V pulls an image off the system clipboard and adds it as an attachment. You can also attach an image by typing, pasting, or dragging an image file path into the input — quoted, unquoted, and macOS backslash-escaped paths (e.g. Screenshot\ 2026.png) are all recognised. Attachments appear above the input box as [image #1: …]; Ctrl+X drops the most recently added one. See Image Attachments for the full feature, including supported formats and platform requirements.

Copying & Pasting Text

ActionShortcut
Paste textYour terminal's own paste (Cmd+V on macOS, usually Ctrl+Shift+V on Linux)
Copy last response to clipboard/copy
Toggle selection mode (fullscreen only)Ctrl+P

Nanocoder enables bracketed paste, so the terminal hands over a pasted block in one piece rather than as a stream of keystrokes. Multi-line pastes no longer submit the prompt at the first line break. Pastes that are multi-line, or longer than the paste threshold, collapse into a [Paste #1: 1234 chars] placeholder to keep the input readable; the full text is still sent with your message. Adjust the threshold under /settings.

Note that Ctrl+V is bound to image paste, not text. Use your terminal's paste shortcut for text.

Selection mode applies to fullscreen mode only. Fullscreen turns on mouse reporting so the wheel can scroll the chat viewport, and that takes click-drag selection away from the terminal. Ctrl+P suspends mouse reporting so you can select and copy with the mouse as normal; press it again to resume scrolling. Inline mode (the default) never enables mouse reporting, so selection works there without doing anything and Ctrl+P does nothing.

History & Navigation

ActionShortcut
Previous promptUp
Next promptDown

During AI Response

ActionShortcut
Cancel responseEsc

Display

ActionShortcut
Toggle development modeShift+Tab
Toggle compact tool outputCtrl+O
Toggle expanded reasoning tracesCtrl+R
Toggle selection mode (fullscreen only)Ctrl+P