02. Everyday Conversation and the Screen
Find, jump, and timeline
Search the conversation, hop to a turn, or watch a tick rail of the session. These tools move through a long session without mutating it.
Find highlights text. Jump and the timeline change only the viewport. History puts an old prompt back into the composer; it does not rewind the transcript.
| Tool | Job | Mode |
|---|---|---|
/find [text] | Incremental search over the scrollback. | Fullscreen only |
/jump | Picker of turns (your prompts). Live preview; Esc restores. | Fullscreen only |
/timeline | Toggle a tick rail (one tick per turn) in the scrollbar gutter. | Fullscreen only |
/history | Fuzzy-search this session’s prompts and drop one into the composer. | Both modes |
Minimal mode has no interactive scrollback pane. Typed /find, /jump, or /timeline is refused and points you at /fullscreen. Use the terminal’s own search and scroll there, or /history / /transcript to get text back.
Shift+← / Shift+→ (or H / L in vim mode) already step turn by turn. After dozens of prompts, you want a search box, a turn list, or a rail you can click. /history is the other direction: you want the words you typed, not the place you were reading.
`/find` — search the scrollback
/find
/find auth middlewareFullscreen only.
Bare /find or whitespace-only args open a blank search. A non-empty argument is the initial query.
In simple mode (the default), a bare / on an empty prompt opens the slash menu, not scrollback search. /find is the way in from either input mode. In vim mode, / in the focused scrollback opens the same search.
While the query bar is open:
| Key | Effect |
|---|---|
| Type | Filter as you go. Matches highlight in the scrollback. |
↑ / ↓ | Move between matches. |
Enter | Accept the query (empty query closes search). |
n / N | Next / previous match after you accept (vim-style). |
Esc | Close search. |
`/jump` — pick a turn
/jumpFullscreen only.
The picker lists every turn, oldest first. It opens on the turn at the viewport top and live-scrolls the transcript as you move, so the preview is what Enter will commit to.
| Key or mouse | Effect |
|---|---|
↑ / ↓ or k / j | Move the cursor (preview follows). |
Enter or left-click a row | Jump to that turn and close. |
Esc | Close and restore the viewport (and follow mode) from when you opened the picker. |
You need at least two turns. One turn toasts Nothing to jump to yet and does not open the picker.
/jump will not open — and an open picker is dropped — while rewind, inline edit, /btw, or a permission / question / cancel-turn / plan overlay owns the input slot. Unlike /rewind, jump fetches nothing and changes no history.
`/timeline` — tick rail
/timelineFullscreen only.
The command toggles the rail and persists show_timeline. Ticks encode conversation order, not scroll proportion. Click a tick to jump to that turn; ▲ / ▼ step to the nearest turn above or below the viewport top.
The rail stays hidden when any of these is true:
- the terminal is narrower than 60 columns
- the conversation has fewer than two turns
- you are inside a sub-assistant view
`/history` — search prompts
/historyWorks in both screen modes. The slash pipeline clears the composer first, so the overlay opens with an empty query over the full session history (newest first). Type to fuzzy-filter. Enter or Tab drops the highlighted match back into the prompt.
For browse instead of search: press ↑ on an empty prompt in normal input mode. The panel opens with your last prompt already filled in; ↑ / ↓ step through entries; ↓ past the newest closes the panel; typing edits the recalled prompt in place. Recalled ! shell commands re-enter shell mode. ↓ never opens history.