Command Palette & search

Press Cmd/CtrlK to open the Command Palette, the fastest way to do almost anything without leaving the keyboard. It is one search box over several sources at once, so you do not have to remember which menu a thing lives in.

Enlarge screenshot

Start typing and it searches across:

• Commands: Open Folder…, New Terminal, New Browser, New Editor, Open Panel Library, Source Control, Checks, Explorer, New task, Start Supervised Task…, Switch Panel, Open Settings, Reset Zoom, Zoom to Fit, Auto-Layout Canvas, New Region and New Text, matched fuzzily on their names.
• Project scripts: scripts declared in your project’s deska.json appear as Run script: commands, so a build or a test suite is as close as any built-in action.
• Files: your project is searched by both filename and file contents, so a snippet of code you half-remember finds the file it lives in. Each hit shows the path and a preview of the matching line.
• Open panels: jump straight to any terminal, editor, browser or agent open in any project on this computer. A panel matches on its title, on its summary, on what it is doing right now (the running command, the agent and its state, Needs you) and on its file path, URL or folder. Type “deploy” and the terminal whose summary reads Deploying the site to production comes first. Panels in the project on screen rank first; a panel in another project shows that project’s name, and picking it switches projects and takes you there.
• Terminal output: find a line that scrolled past in an open terminal of this project. These lines come last, after files, and only for terminals that did not already match as a panel.
• Agent threads: search every supervised thread and provider session by name, whether or not an Inbox panel is open. Picking one opens it as a Thread panel, or focuses the panel already showing it. See Agent threads.
• Worktrees: the worktrees in your project match by branch name, so a branch you cut yourself or an agent-held checkout is one keystroke away. Type a name no branch uses yet and a New worktree row appears at the bottom of the results, so you can cut a new branch without leaving the palette. See Workspaces & the canvas.
• Settings: type the name of a preference (“zoom speed”, “format on save”) and the palette offers to jump straight to it. Both whole settings pages and individual settings match, so “appearance” gets you the category and “background fetch” gets you the single control.

Arrow keys move the selection, Enter runs it, Esc closes. Opened with nothing typed, the palette lists this project’s panels with their summaries, the ones that need you first, then its curated commands; the deeper search sources only wake up once you type.

Search is plain text matching, no AI involved: every word you type must appear somewhere, in any order, and case and accents are ignored. It reads summaries your agent already wrote and never asks for a new one. To ask in your own words instead, use ask mode below or Dex.

The palette has a second mode. With text typed, press Tab (or choose the Ask the agent row at the bottom, which is already selected when nothing else matches, and press Enter) and your text is handed to an agent instead of being treated as a command, a natural-language fallback for “I do not know the command, I just want this done.” It opens the New task draft composer prefilled with your sentence: you review the prompt, pick the agent, then send. See Agents.

When you just want a file by name, Cmd/CtrlP opens a lean, filename-only fuzzy finder. Type a few characters of the path, press Enter, and the file opens as a tab in the notebook’s editor on the right (the editor already there is reused, so repeated opens stack as tabs). It is the muscle-memory shortcut from other editors, and it works the same way here.

Three more overlays help you move around once a project grows:

• Panel Switcher (CtrlSpace): a grid of every panel open on the current canvas, with a type icon and a little metadata (file, URL or working directory). Pick one and the viewport centers on it and focuses it. To step through panels one at a time instead, use Ctrl` and CtrlShift`.
• Workspace overview (Cmd/CtrlShiftP): a board of everything you have open, one card per workspace with one row per worktree. Click a worktree row to land on it, or the workspace name to enter the workspace. See Workspaces & the canvas for more.
• Jump overlay (Cmd/CtrlEnter): every project and every worktree, one keystroke away, except while you type in an editor, a terminal or a text field, where it sends. Tab cycles workspaces, 1 to 9 jump straight to one, and N cuts a new one.

The full list of these chords lives in the keyboard shortcuts reference.