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.

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…, Toggle Sidebar, Toggle File Explorer, 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 already on the canvas, matched on its title, file path or URL.
• Terminal scrollback: find a line that scrolled past in any open terminal and jump back to it.
• 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 Parallel Work branch or an agent-held checkout is one keystroke away. An always-present create worktree row sits 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 (“minimap”, “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 shows its curated list of commands plus your open terminals, editors and browsers as jump targets; the deeper search sources only wake up once you type.

The palette has a second mode. Press Tab (or just type a sentence 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 an editor tab in the center dock (re-using the existing editor if the file is already open). It is the muscle-memory shortcut from other editors, and it works the same way here.

Two 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 meta-canvas of everything you have open, one horizontal lane per workspace and one card per worktree. Click a worktree card to land on it, or the lane head to enter the workspace. See Workspaces & the canvas for more.
• Jump overlay (Cmd/CtrlEnter): every project and every worktree, one keystroke away. 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.