Codeman/docs/wiki/Tile-Grid.md

Tile Grid

Watch and drive up to six sessions at once, side by side in one window. Each tile is a full live terminal: it reads, it takes your keystrokes, and it shows at a glance whether its agent is working, idle, or waiting on you.

The grid is a desktop feature. It needs a window at least about 1180px wide, and it is never offered in a popped-out session window.

Turning it on

App Settings → Header & Panels → Tiles. This is a per-device setting, on by default on desktops and laptops and off on phones and tablets, and the button only appears in a window at least 1180px wide. It shows a Tiles button in the header, beside Split, and enables Ctrl+Shift+G.

Opening a grid

• Tiles button: one click shows the tiles straight away. If you have used the grid in this browser before, you get it back exactly as you left it: the same sessions in the same places, an empty place where you left one, the same number of tiles, your column widths and row heights, the tile you were in, and a zoomed tile still zoomed. A session closed since frees its place, which is filled the way a new grid is filled (below). Otherwise, or when none of those sessions is left, you get as many tiles as you last chose (six until you choose; fewer if the window is too small or you have fewer sessions open): an open split's two first; otherwise the sessions that are working (the most recently started first), then the ones waiting on you (red and yellow tabs), then the rest, the most recently used first, so the oldest are the ones left out. The session you are on always comes along and is focused. With the grid open, the same button closes it.
• Rest the pointer on the Tiles button (or tab to it) for a short card that shows the count you chose and what a click and a right-click do.
• Right-click the Tiles button (or press Shift+F10 on it) to choose how many tiles: 2, 4 or 6, each drawn as its layout. Your choice is remembered in this browser. Picking a count opens the grid with that many tiles (the grid you left, its tiles in their places, new ones in the empty places first), and it is what a click opens when there is no grid to bring back. With the grid open, picking a count re-forms it: the tile you are in always stays, extra tiles leave from the end, new ones join working ones first, then the ones waiting on you, then the most recent. A count the window is too small for is greyed out, with the reason.
• Ctrl+Shift+G: exactly what a click on the Tiles button does.
• Ctrl+click (or Cmd+click) a tab: adds that session to the grid and focuses it. With the grid closed it opens what the Tiles button would show with that session added: in the empty place while the grid has fewer tiles than the count you chose, else in place of the last tile (never more than the count). On macOS use Cmd: Ctrl+click there opens the tab's rename instead.
• Drag a tab onto a tile to replace that tile with it (the replaced session keeps running), or onto an empty slot to add it. Dragging a session that is already tiled onto another tile swaps the two.
• "Open group as tiles" in a tab group's menu, in the vertical tab rail with groups.
• Run: a session you start from this browser tab's Run button while the grid is open joins it. Sessions started elsewhere (an agent, another device, a cron job) do not.

The layout follows the tile count: 1x1, 2x1, three side by side on a wide screen (else a 2x2 with one empty slot), 2x2, 3x2. The grid holds at most six tiles, fewer when the window is too small for six; the count menu says which limit applies.

Opening, the tiles fade in one after another and each terminal appears once its history has loaded, rather than scrolling through it. Closing with the button, the tiles stay on screen, dimmed, until the single session behind them has loaded, then fade away. With reduced motion turned on in your system settings, the grid opens and closes at once.

A tile

Each tile has a small header: ● [logo] name · model ......... ⋯ ⤢ ×

Part	What it does
●	The session's state: working, idle, waiting on you, needs you (red, and the tile's border pulses), error, ended. Hover the header for how long.
logo	Which agent runs in the tile (Claude Code, Codex, DeepSeek, Shell, ...). Hover it for the agent and the model by name.
name	Double-click to rename the session.
model	The model the session runs, when Codeman knows it: what the agent itself reports (it follows a /model switch), else the model its own config pins (DeepSeek's route, shown "from config"), else the model it was started with. Nothing when unknown. OpenCode shows the model and its provider together (Big Pickle OpenCode Zen), exactly as its own composer does.
⋯	The session menu: options, open in a new window, close the session.
⤢	Zoom: the tile fills the grid; press it again (or Alt+Shift+Enter) to get the grid back.
×	Remove the tile. The session keeps running; close it from ⋯ if you want it gone.

Click a tile to focus it. The focused tile has the accent border, takes your keyboard, and is the session every panel follows: files, git status, respawn and Ralph, subagent windows, voice and image paste. Tabs of tiled sessions carry a small underline.

Drag the thin lines between tiles to resize columns and rows. A tile never gets smaller than about 60 columns; when the window is too small for all the tiles, the grid shows the focused one on its own until the window is big enough again.

A tile whose session is not running shows Not attached with an Attach button. A tile whose agent exited inside its pane says so instead; close that session from ⋯.

Moving tiles

Drag a tile by its header (anywhere but its buttons) onto another tile and the two trade places. Drop it on an empty slot and it moves there, leaving its old place empty; nothing else moves, so the empty slot can be anywhere in the grid. The dropped tile takes the focus. Press Escape or let go anywhere else and nothing changes, not even which tile has the focus: a header focuses its tile when you click it, not when you press it.

With the keyboard, Ctrl+Shift+Arrows moves the focused tile one place left, right, up or down: into the empty slot if that is the place, else trading places with the tile there. It keeps the focus.

A moved tile takes the size of the place it lands in: column widths and row heights stay where you dragged the dividers. Tiles do not move while one is zoomed. Where everything is, the empty slot included, is saved with the grid and comes back when you turn the grid off and on, and on a page reload while the grid is open.

Closing a tile leaves its place empty when the grid keeps its shape (six tiles to five), and a new tile takes the first empty place. When the number of tiles changes the grid's shape (four tiles to five is two columns to three), the tiles keep their places if they still fit, or line up again from the top left. Alt+Shift+Arrows and Ctrl+Tab never stop on an empty slot.

Keys

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+G	Open or close the grid.
Alt+Shift+Arrows	Focus the tile to the left, right, above or below.
Ctrl+Shift+Arrows	Move the focused tile left, right, up or down.
Alt+Shift+Enter	Zoom the focused tile, or restore the grid.
Ctrl+Tab, Alt+[ ]	Cycle through the tiles.
Ctrl+L	Clear the focused tile.
Ctrl + / Ctrl -	Tile font size (tiles have their own, smaller font).

All of them can be rebound in App Settings → Shortcuts, where Remove Focused Tile can also get a key. Outside the grid, Alt+Shift+Arrows, Ctrl+Shift+Arrows and Alt+Shift+Enter go to the terminal as usual. While it is open, Alt+Shift+Arrows and Ctrl+Shift+Arrows in a text field (renaming a tile, the file editor) still select text there; inside a tile they focus and move tiles, so a terminal editor there (nano, micro, emacs) does not get them. With the Tiles setting off, Ctrl+Shift+G does nothing.

Leaving the grid

Clicking the tab of a session that is not tiled (or picking it with Alt+1-9 or the session finder) shows that session on its own, the normal single view. The grid is remembered: the Tiles button or Ctrl+Shift+G brings it straight back. Going Home does the same. Narrowing the window below the desktop width also returns to the single view.

The grid is saved in this browser every time you change it (moving, resizing, adding or removing a tile, changing the count, focusing or zooming a tile), and never sent to the server. However you leave it (the Tiles button, another tab, Home, a link, closing its last tile or session), the Tiles button brings it back as it was. A page reload brings it back when the grid was open; after you left it, a reload shows the single view and the Tiles button still brings the grid back. A session that was closed or popped out into its own window in the meantime frees its place for another one, picked the way a new grid picks them; the place stays empty only when no other session is left. Right after a page reload the page does not know yet which sessions are waiting for your answer, so that pick goes by which sessions are working and which you used last. If the window has become too small for all the tiles, the tile you were in fills the grid until the window is wide enough again, and the rest of the layout is kept.

Split shows the same logo, name and model above both of its panes.

The grid and Split are never open together: opening the grid turns an open split into two tiles, and Split is unavailable while the grid is open.

Read next

• The Dashboard - the single view, tabs and the header.
• Keyboard Shortcuts - every binding.
• Settings Reference - where the Tiles setting lives.