Live catalog vs written tutorial

The in-app lists are the live catalog: they grow when you add a skill or a plugin, and they hide commands the current screen mode cannot run. Written pages — including these — can lag a build. Treat them as the stable path through a job, not as a second source of flags.

The layers

/help is not a help document. It opens the same command palette as Ctrl+P. In minimal mode there is no persistent shortcut footer, so /help is the advertised way in.

Open the live slash menu

1. Focus the prompt (Tab if the scrollback has focus).
2. Type /.
3. Keep typing to fuzzy-filter. Each row shows the name, a short description, an argument hint, and a source badge (built-in, skill · local, a plugin name, …).
4. Tab or Enter accepts the highlighted command.

Commands come from three places, in one menu:

• Pager builtins — screen and session actions (/theme, /docs, /minimal, …)
• Session builtins — assistant-backend actions (/compact, /model, …)
• Skills — any enabled skill with user-invocable: true in its SKILL.md

A skill may reuse a built-in name such as login. The built-in keeps /login; the skill stays available as /plugin-name:login (or /local:login / /user:login when two skills collide). The menu badges both so the clash is visible. Built-ins always win the bare name.

Plugins and project skills can add rows that no written page lists. That is expected. If / shows it and the CLI has not failed the command closed, it is real.

The menu is also filtered by render mode. Fullscreen-only names disappear in minimal (see Fullscreen vs minimal).

Open the command palette

Ctrl+P

Or press ? while the scrollback is focused, or type:

/help

Type to filter, then Enter. The palette lists keyboard shortcuts with their current bindings, slash commands, and available skills. Use it when you remember the job but not the key.

Ctrl+P and / are related, not identical: / is the composer menu for commands; the palette is the searchable action browser.

Open a written how-to: `/docs`

Aliases: /howto, /guides.

/docs
/docs how-to
/docs Getting Started

• Bare /docs or /docs how-to opens the How-to Guides picker.
• /docs <title> opens one guide by case-insensitive title. The title must match the in-app name, not a file name.

Titles registered for /docs (type them exactly):

• Getting Started
• Authentication
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Slash Commands
• Configuration
• Theming and Appearance
• MCP Servers
• Skills
• Plugins
• Hooks
• Custom Models
• Project Rules (AGENTS.md)
• Memory
• Headless Mode and Scripting
• Agent Mode and IDE Integration
• Subagents and Personas
• Session Management
• Sandbox Mode
• Plan Mode
• Background Tasks and Monitoring
• Terminal Support and Troubleshooting
• Permissions and Safety
• Agent Dashboard
• Monitoring Usage
• Hooks & Plugins Guide
• Creating Custom Hooks

On startup, Matcha CLI copies the user-guide markdown into ~/.matcha/docs/user-guide/. You can read those files in an editor. They are the same pages /docs shows.

Open the first-hour overlay: `/tutorial`

/tutorial

Aliases: /tour, /onboarding. Fullscreen only (including --no-alt-screen). In minimal, Matcha CLI tells you to /fullscreen first.

Nothing auto-shows. The overlay is a short list of first-hour topics (first prompt, @ attachments, navigation, slash commands, worktrees, plan mode, customization, switching from another tool). Each page is meant as a ~30-second read; → goes to the next topic.

Use /tutorial on day one. Use a written job guide when you want a full procedure (sessions, MCP, …). Use /docs when you need a flag or an alias.

When the written page is wrong

A tutorial can lag a binary, a skill can add a command, or a surface can fail closed (/marketplace, /feedback, /docs web, matcha update). In that case:

1. Believe / and Ctrl+P for “does this command exist here?”
2. Believe the refusal text if you type a gated or disabled name.
3. Treat written pages as a path through a job, not as a second source of flags.

Try this

1. matcha → / → type doc → open /docs.
2. /docs Slash Commands and skim the mode-gated section.
3. Ctrl+P (or /help) → type tutorial → run it if you are in fullscreen.
4. If you later install a user-invocable skill, confirm it appears in / even though no written article named it.