Session panel

The right panel starts hidden. /panel opens the default pulse cards; the same command closes it. Its fixed header names the current preset and /panel, including in the narrow sheet (panelNarrow: sheet). Ctrl+X, Shift+B toggles it (panel.toggle, rebindable in /keymap). /sidebar only controls the left session list.

• /panel <preset> switches to a curated list; /panel next cycles the available presets (skips galaxy outside full tier). /panel off hides the panel and retains its list.
• /panel edit opens the widget editor: a adds, arrows select a type or widget, Enter confirms, d removes, J/K moves, e edits a widget's JSON, Esc returns. Text and extension widgets open the JSON editor; Ctrl+U clears its draft.
• /panel reset empties the effective spec and hides it. The next /panel starts with pulse again.
• /panel width 32..80|auto sets the bar's cells (sidebarWidth; automatic is 48, 56 from 150 columns).
• /panel widget <id> adds the built-in card of that name (/panel widget atom), or else a registered extension panel (8 rows maximum). Registration alone never opens the bar or renders a hidden panel; remove it with /panel edit. With the galaxy first in the bar, the cards after it are drawn under its own Focus, Recent and Top cards.
• Alt+} focuses the bar; PgUp/PgDn or arrows scroll it, Esc returns to the prompt. Mouse wheel over the bar also scrolls.
• The left session list keeps its existing /sidebar auto|always|hidden commands.

One session, one screen

What these commands show or hide is the session's where they were typed, not every terminal's: /panel (shown, hidden, a preset, next, an added card, the width), /sidebar, /timestamps, /thinking, /scrollbar and the keys bound to them. Another terminal, or another session in the same terminal, keeps its own screen. The session's choices are kept in <dataDir>/tui/session-look.json (the newest 200 sessions), so the session shows them again after /restart or in any terminal that opens it. The defaults every terminal starts from are the config files: /customize, tui/profile.json and the panel's spec; /panel edit and /panel reset edit that spec, so they reach every session that has no cards of its own. When the spec changes (an agent built a panel), every terminal takes the new cards unless its session chose its own, and the bar opens only in a terminal whose session has a turn running.

Spec and model tool

Context distinguishes the auto-compaction budget from the model window; the footer's threshold percentage is labelled compact. Quota cards show observation age; readings older than 15 minutes show one muted row, codex · quota stale · 11h ago, and do not raise pressure alerts. Missing readings stay unavailable, never zero usage. A card with nothing to show is one muted line (No timed turns yet, Nothing queued), and cards keep their height while a turn starts and ends (todos list every item, up to six).

The header names the preset whenever the spec has the same cards in the same order (priorities and key order do not matter); custom means an edited list. /panel next continues from the current preset (a custom or empty spec starts at pulse) and skips galaxy outside the full tier. A refused preset changes nothing and says why in one line: minimalist for every verb that would show the panel, and balanced for galaxy (Galaxy needs full tier (/tier full) · try /panel crew). /panel off and /panel reset always work.

sidebarWidgets is an ordered list in <dataDir>/tui/profile.json. rightSidebar is the default visibility; a session's own goes in session-look.json. <project>/.mendcode/tui/profile.json can override sidebarWidgets; even an empty project list overrides the user list. The manual editor and /panel reset edit the effective spec: the project override when present, otherwise the user profile. An empty project override stays empty; edit or remove that override explicitly to inherit the user spec again. Existing right-panel subcommands under /sidebar remain hidden compatibility aliases; completion and help only advertise /panel.

{
  "sidebarWidgets": [
    { "type": "context", "options": {} },
    { "type": "usage", "title": "Quota", "options": {} },
    { "type": "text", "title": "Review", "options": { "text": "Run local checks before delivery." } },
    { "type": "sidechat", "options": {} }
  ],
  "rightSidebar": true
}

The native model tool sidebar supports get, set, add, remove, move, clear. Indices are zero-based. set takes widgets; add takes widget and optional index; move takes index and to. scope is user by default or project. Changes pass through ordinary write permissions; smart mode classifies this validated UI change as low risk. Sub-agents cannot change the bar. The daemon preserves unrelated profile fields and notifies connected terminals after a change.

Every widget accepts title, options.maxRows (1–100) and options.priority (high, normal, low). Only text accepts options.text (markdown; use a fenced code block for ASCII to preserve its spacing). There are at most 32 widgets. Unsupported types, fields, options and out-of-range actions are rejected before writing.

Missing data says unavailable; empty lists say what is empty. Custom widgets belong in a terminal extension, not an invented built-in type. See terminal extensions.

Presets and short terminals

Cards use open rules with a live value at the right, a one-cell state rail, compact facts and block sparklines. Colors use the current theme. Presets are editable specs and the native sidebar tool keeps working.

Presets need balanced/full; minimalist keeps them off. panel and panel_models declare the balanced tier and panel_orbit the full tier; none opens itself. The galaxy also checks the tier when added through the editor or model tool. usage remains a compatibility alias for quota windows; ledger and full show only limits. models groups tokens by provider/model (input, output including reasoning, cache read/write), including compaction calls in the loaded history. It shows the five largest groups plus an omitted total; storage is capped at 64 named groups and an exact overflow bucket. Pace stretches recent samples across the card width with a zero baseline and observed min/max labels; interpolated cells are visual guides, not extra observations.

The slot also shows a file

Clicking a file path opens it in this same slot (file viewer). While a file is open the slot shows the file or the panel, Alt+{ switches (the first row says which), and closing the file puts the panel back with its preset and focus exactly as it was; with no panel the slot hides again. A narrow terminal shows the file as a page instead.

Galaxy

The session's code graph drawn as a galaxy: a disc with two spiral arms. The nodes are the files the session read or changed and the symbols its graph lookups returned (at most 96, the most recent first); the links join a symbol to its file and a caller to what it calls (at most 256). A file lies along the arms at a place fixed by its id and its symbols cluster around it, so nothing moves when nodes are added, sorted or filtered. When a tool uses a node or a link it fires: a spark runs along the link (0.6 s), the link and the node glow in the firing colour (1.5 s), stay warm in their own colour, and rest after six seconds; the galaxy moves only while something is that fresh, while a turn runs or while it is focused, and under reduced motion nothing fires. Built from what the tools declared, never from shell text or tool output. The panel asks the terminal for its cell size once, when the galaxy first opens, and sizes the rows by it, so the disc is round and not stretched; a terminal that does not answer is taken as a cell twice as tall as wide.

Choose /panel galaxy, then Alt+} to focus. /panel orbit, the old name, still works. Arrows/hjkl rotate immediately with decaying inertia; +/- zoom (65–135%), f cycles all/files/symbols, Tab selects the next visible node, and Enter opens a file in /changes session or a symbol in the file viewer at its line. Files without a retained diff show an explicit notice. One status row sits under the disc: at rest it counts ▣ 4 files · ◆ 9 symbols · 14 links (shorter forms on a narrow card); focused it names the selected node and the keys (renderToolCard · hjkl · tab · enter · f type · m code), with [symbol] ahead while a type filter is on. m switches to the code of the project (code mode).

On a tall bar the galaxy takes the bar's width (centred, at most 80 cells) and three cards about the same graph fill the rest, dropping from the bottom as the bar gets shorter and never overflowing: Focus (the selected node with its type, a symbol's file:line, its uses, last activity and its connections, most recent first), Recent (the latest uses, one per tool and node, as edit → panel.ts · 12s ago or graph_callers → cardRows · now) and Top (the busiest nodes: label, a bar and the count). The bars start at one column and are as wide on every row, the counts are right-aligned in a column as wide as the widest, and the label is cut to what is left. A bar fills in eighths of a cell over a ░ track, so 4 and 5 hits differ and a bar reads with no colour; MENDCODE_GLYPHS=ascii draws # over - in the same columns. A Recent row keeps its age by cutting the label. [ and ] step through Recent, select the node it touched and light that link on the galaxy; Tab and Enter work as before and the selection shows in all three lists.

Code mode

m in the focused panel switches the galaxy between the session and the code; the focused status row names where the key goes (m code, m session) and the header says galaxy · code. Code mode draws the project's most connected files (24, by the files they import, the files that import them and the calls that cross them) as file nodes, with the links among them: a → b when a imports b or calls into it. Files with no links fill the rest, the ones with the most symbols first, so a project whose files never import each other still has a galaxy. The card's value is 24 of 2790 files and the status row at rest ▣ 24 files · 51 links +2766. Rotation, zoom and Tab are the session's; Tab walks the files from the most connected. Enter opens the selected file in the file viewer: a project file has no session diff to show. f, [ and ] do nothing here (one kind of node, no events). Under the galaxy, Focus shows the file, 41 imports · 3 imported by · 180 calls and its most connected imports and importers (imports · top 4 of 41); Top ranks the files with the same bars as the session's. Recent has no code counterpart and gives its rows to the other two. A short sheet degrades as in session mode.

Pressing m is the explicit request the code graph waits for. One other request comes by itself: a session that has touched no code yet (its galaxy would be empty) asks once, while the panel shows, where the graph is on and the folder is not skipped, and the canvas turns to the project's code only when that answer is ready to draw (a build or failure leaves the empty session view); its first touched file brings the session view back, and m makes the choice the user's for the rest of the session. While the first build runs the canvas is one muted line, Building code graph; the keyboard is not held. In the home folder or above it the line is Code graph is off here · not a project and nothing is indexed; with the graph switched off (MENDCODE_CODEGRAPH=0, or the codegraph feature off) it says so the same way. A failed build is Code graph failed · <reason>. Pressing m again from the session asks again, which refreshes changed files only; the graph already shown stays until the answer arrives. The mode lasts for the session on screen and is not saved: another session starts in session mode.

The data is one daemon command, codegraph.overview {directory, limit?} (1–30 files, default 24). Its reply is bounded: at most 30 files, 256 links, 5 imports and 5 importers per file, paths of at most 240 characters relative to the project (a longer path is left out, never cut) and a reason of at most 200. The terminal re-bounds the reply before drawing it and reads no graph file itself. A read-only remote peer may not send the command.

Node IDs select stable positions on a fixed Fibonacci lattice; insertion, reordering and filtering keep those positions. Perspective enlarges near nodes; far nodes are smaller and dim. Typed glyphs/colors, a faint braille latitude/longitude grid, and dim back edges make the volume legible. The nearest six labels that fit reserve node and label space; the focused node has priority and lights its edges. Tool→file edges use declared metadata and briefly light for 800 ms on live touches; session→file edges use observed touches, parent→child edges use the daemon's lineage, and MCP→tool edges use the declared mcp__server__tool names. Unknown sub-agent file relationships are never inferred. Fewer than three nodes show a quiet explanation of what will appear. The graph is capped at 96 nodes/256 edges, with an omitted count in the legend. No frame walks disk, spawns a process, reaches a service or asks a provider.

Rotation ticks at 10 fps only while focused or the session is busy, freezes otherwise, and stops off-page. Reduced motion and accessible mode disable automatic rotation, inertia and pulses; manual rotation remains immediate. ascii-box, TERM=dumb or MENDCODE_GLYPHS=ascii use ASCII marks/rules. Projection, collision and render tests cover determinism and the warmed maximum canvas (80×32), ≤4 ms per frame. Frame dumps use the actual TUI renderer with local fake session events, including three rotation angles and focused nodes, not live-provider evidence.

When the bar is shorter than its cards, low cards are hidden first (last first), then normal ones, but only while a high card is there to keep; high cards are never hidden. The first row says how many are hidden. With no priorities set nothing is hidden and the bar scrolls as before.

Rows are coloured per span (state, pressure, ✓/✗ per tool) and use the theme glyph set, so the plain and Nerd Font sets both draw. Alongside the cards, the footer segments ttft, tps and spend and the prompt status line (/customize > Prompt & footer > Status line) show the same facts compactly; see customization.

From 110 columns the right bar takes 48 cells; from 150 it takes 56, or the sidebarWidth setting (the bar then needs that width plus 62 columns for the chat). A bar that gave way for lack of room comes back only 8 columns above its threshold, so a terminal on the edge does not flicker. Widgets keep their order and overflow scrolls inside the bar. Below 110 the bar hides and the chat keeps the whole width; it comes back on its own when the terminal widens again. panelNarrow: sheet (/customize → Terminal → Panel when narrow) shows it instead as a full-width sheet above the prompt. The sheet reserves rows instead of covering the latest output, and shrinks around approvals, limit notices and the editor while keeping six transcript rows when space permits. An open side chat uses that sheet directly; on wide terminals it appears at its configured position, or before the widgets if the spec has no sidechat entry.

Project backlog

Feature backlog (full tier; off in the others and with no tier; /tier backlog on|off). Your own list of pending things for a project. It survives sessions and daemon restarts, and it is yours: the model can read it and cannot change it.

It is a different thing from its neighbours. The todos card is the model's working checklist for one session (its todo tool). /scratch is a free note that never reaches a model. /tasks lists sub-agent sessions. Memories are facts the model is given in its prompt. The backlog is what you still mean to do in this project.

/backlog                                   the list, open items first
/backlog add [--file PATH] [--commit SHA] <text>
/backlog done <id> · reopen <id> · remove <id>
/backlog open <id>                         switch to the session it was added in and open its file
/backlog clear                             remove the finished items

An item has a number (#3; never given twice in a project), its text on one line (300 characters at most), open or done, the time it was added, and where it was born: the session /backlog add was typed in, plus the file and the commit when you name them. A project holds 200 items; past that an add is refused until finished ones are cleared or some are removed.

The panel card (/panel widget backlog; no preset includes it, so a saved full list keeps matching its preset):

2 open · 1 done
□ #1 fix the flaky store test
□ #3 write the migration notes for the new settings key
✓ #2 rename the --dir flag

Empty it reads Nothing pending · /backlog add <text>; with the feature off, Backlog is off · /tier backlog on. Rows are cut to the card's width with … and keep their number. The card is read again when a turn starts or ends and after every /backlog change in this terminal.

Headless, for the directory the command runs in (automation):

mendcode backlog list [--json]
mendcode backlog add [--file PATH] [--commit SHA] [--session ID] "text"
mendcode backlog done|reopen|remove <id>
mendcode backlog clear

2 open · 1 done
#1 [ ] fix the flaky store test  (packages/store/src/store.ts · a1b2c3d · session ses_a1)
#3 [ ] write the migration notes for the new settings key
#2 [x] rename the --dir flag

--json prints { directory, items: [{ id, text, done, createdAt, doneAt?, origin?: { sessionId?, path?, commit? } }] }; an add also carries added, the new number.

Where it is kept. One JSON file per project in the daemon data directory, backlogs/<sha256 of the canonical project directory>.json, written whole and renamed into place (mode 600), beside the scratchpads and keyed the same way. A file edited by hand is read item by item; what does not fit the shape is left out.

The model. The list is in no prompt, no tool definition and no session event, so changing it never touches the provider's prompt cache: a model reads it on request with mendcode backlog list --json from its shell, and the answer arrives as an ordinary tool result at the end of the conversation. Every write (backlog.change) is refused to a session's own shell, by the command and by the daemon (permissions). A model that leaves something undone says so in plain text, Left undone: <text>, and you add it with /backlog add; nothing is added on its behalf. A read-only remote token does not get the list either.