Tabs, columns and names

A session you open is a tab in the same strip as your docs. Columns show several at once; a name makes one easy to find.

Several sessions at once#

A session's tab shows status where a doc's icon sits, with changed lines and context fill beside the name. Files, a branch's changes and previews are tabs in the same strip. Every open tab stays mounted, so switching tears no terminal down.

While a session's tab shows, the rail stays on Sessions. Clicking a row opens a temporary tab (italic) that the next click replaces; a session you launch gets a kept tab. Tab gestures and keys: Tabs.

Closing a session's tab ends the session, after asking. The ×, middle-click and ⌘W all ask End qa?, naming the tool still running.

Close others, Close to the right and Close all ask once, listing every session they would end. A refused stop keeps the dialog open with the reason. A session in your own terminal is not Slate's to end: closing its view leaves it running. A session replaced in a temporary tab keeps running as In Slate · no window; click its row to bring the tab back. On close the neighbouring tab takes over; with none left you land on the map. Escape, or the back arrow on a transcript, returns to the map without closing anything. Sessions in the rail returns to the session tab you were last on.

⌘-click any tab to open it in its own column: two sessions, a session and its doc, an agent beside the dev server.

Sessions side by side#

Open beside in a row's ⋯, or ⌘-click on the row, shows that session in a new column right after yours. The main area holds up to 4 columns; with four, Open beside adds a tab to the column next to yours.

• Each column has its own tabs. Your working column has a blue line on top; click another to work there. The list marks each session on screen with its column: left/right, middle with three, column 1 to column 4 with four.
• Drag the line between columns to widen one; double-click a line to equalise all. Widths are saved per workspace and survive relaunch.
• Back to one view: Unsplit at the top of the last column, or ⇧⌘\\. All tabs are kept. Closing a column's last tab closes the column.

Naming a session#

A session has one name, shown on its tab, list row and memory doc. Right-click the tab, Rename…; Enter or clicking away keeps it, Escape keeps the old one. One line, up to 80 characters.

A session with no name, or one that reads as none (blank, "session", "untitled", a raw id), shows "\<Tool> session in \<project>" in list, tabs, map, ⌘K and the notification. A name taken from the opening prompt leaves out what the tool wrapped round it: <pasted_content …> around a paste, Cursor's [Image] and <user_query>, a Codex preamble; a tag you typed, like <div>, stays. An agent run's session is named for its run.

Renaming the tab renames the session in its own tool, so its resume list shows the new name:

• Typed only when it cannot land in your words: the last turn ended and nothing is half-typed (if you typed and cleared, Slate waits for your next Enter or Ctrl+U).
• Cursor does not report turn ends: a running Cursor session gets the name when next opened in Slate (tab dimmed until then).
• A session in your own terminal gets it when next opened in Slate.
• /rename typed in any of the four CLIs updates tab, row and memory doc too.

Agents that know about each other#

With two or more sessions in one project, Slate tells each the others exist, once, at the start of a turn, in the message carrying the branch brief. The rail says so under the group: Told about 1 other session here, or the count of the others.

Each agent gets the other's own words: tool, branch, state, what it was asked and its last message, plus the doc id. The branch goal is omitted (agents on one branch share it). Slate never says a session is running, only last active six minutes ago. It asks for nothing; the agents decide.

An agent can leave one note for the others or send one to a particular agent, shown once on their next turn; a reply is another note addressed back. No inbox, scheduler or queue. Notes that only narrate progress are refused. Slate assigns nothing.