Keyboard Shortcuts

Goa provides keyboard shortcuts for navigation, editing, and application actions. The table below shows the default keybindings. Customize them in your theme config.

Key Action
↑ / Ctrl+P Move cursor up / browse history up
↓ / Ctrl+N Move cursor down / browse history down
← / Ctrl+B Move cursor left
→ / Ctrl+F Move cursor right
Alt+← / Alt+B Move cursor by word left
Alt+→ / Alt+F Move cursor by word right
Ctrl+A / Home Move to start of line
Ctrl+E / End Move to end of line
PgUp Scroll chat viewport up by one page
PgDn Scroll chat viewport down by one page

Editing

Key Action
Enter Send message / submit input
Alt+Enter / Ctrl+Enter Insert a newline
Tab Accept completion / path completion
Ctrl+W / Alt+Backspace Delete word backwards
Alt+D Delete word forwards
Ctrl+U Delete to start of line
Ctrl+K Delete to end of line
Ctrl+Y Paste most-recently deleted text (yank)
Alt+Y Cycle through deleted text after pasting
Ctrl+Z Undo
Ctrl+V / Cmd+V / Ctrl+Shift+V Paste from the system clipboard: files copied in a file manager, then an image, then text

These chords read the OS clipboard directly, store whatever they find in the durable image store (~/.cache/goa/images, ~/Library/Caches/goa/images on macOS) and insert the stored path into the input line, where the submit path turns it into an attachment — the same store the web UI's /upload uses.

Cmd+V is bound (as super+v, next to Ctrl+V) because a terminal can only paste for you when the clipboard holds text: with an image-only clipboard — a screenshot — macOS disables the terminal's own Paste menu item, the chord falls through to goa, and a terminal speaking the Kitty keyboard protocol reports it as a key event. Binding that event is what makes Cmd+V paste a screenshot; a terminal that never forwards the chord still pastes images with Ctrl+V.

Application

Key Action
Ctrl+G Toggle the goal status bubble
Tab Next multi-agent tab (yields to a visible completion popup)
Shift+Tab Previous multi-agent tab
Alt+] / Alt+[ Next / previous multi-agent tab (aliases)
Alt+1…Alt+9 Jump to multi-agent tab N
Alt+T Cycle thinking/reasoning level
Alt+M Cycle major mode (coder → planner → reviewer)
Alt+O Open the interactive mode selector
Ctrl+Shift+M Cycle autonomy level (yolo → solo → confirm → review)
Ctrl+L Open the model selector
Ctrl+P Show the assembled system prompt
Ctrl+X Switch orchestrator tab (Conversation ↔ Stats)
Ctrl+T Toggle thinking block visibility
Ctrl+O Toggle all tool output (Summary/Full)
Ctrl+Shift+Z Delete the last chat message
Ctrl+C Cancel input request / quit when empty
Esc Cancel completion / close selection
/ Slash commands
! Run a bash command

Modals & Overlays

Key Action
↑ / ↓ Navigate items in a selector
Enter Confirm selection
Esc Dismiss modal / close overlay
Tab Next field or option
Shift+Tab Previous field or option

Review Pager

When the interactive review pager is open (/review):

Key Action
↑ / k Scroll one line up
↓ / j Scroll one line down
PgUp Scroll one page up
PgDn Scroll one page down
c Add a comment on the current line
e Edit the comment on the current line
d Delete the comment on the current line
b Change the base commit
s Submit the review to the agent
x Export the review to a Markdown file
q / Esc Close the pager

Single-file review: /review:file:<path> opens the same pager for one text file (no git required). It shares every key above except b (change base), and Ctrl+C also closes it.

Note: Keybindings may vary by terminal emulator. Some keys (like Ctrl+Enter) require Kitty keyboard protocol support. Use /hotkeys inside Goa to see your active keybindings.

Browser keys (goa server)

The tables above are the whole story: over the web UI the same bindings apply, because the page does not implement shortcuts of its own. A keypress is reported to the server (key, ctrl, alt, shift), and the server's encoder turns it into the byte sequence a terminal would have written — so Ctrl+G, Alt+1, Ctrl+L, PgUp, F5 and friends mean in the page exactly what they mean in a terminal. Click the page first to give it focus.

What does differ, and is worth knowing:

Difference Why
Cmd/Ctrl+Cmd chords are left to the browser Reload, devtools and tab switching stay available; the page never swallows them
Alt alone may be claimed by the browser menu on some platforms Use Esc to dismiss an overlay if the browser eats Alt
Text inserted programmatically (Input.insertText, some IME/assistive paths) fires no keydown Those keystrokes have no descriptor to encode; type or paste normally — paste goes through /input verbatim
No Kitty keyboard protocol Chords are encoded in the legacy xterm form plus Kitty CSI-u where legacy has no parameter, which covers every binding Goa has

Read-only servers (--server-read-only) accept every view and reject every keystroke, so viewers can navigate and scroll but cannot drive the session.

See WEBUI.md for the full transport and security model.

Attach keys (goa attach)

An attached terminal forwards every keystroke verbatim — the session's bindings are the terminal tables above, unchanged. The client keeps exactly one chord for itself:

Key Action
Ctrl+] Detach: the terminal is restored and goa attach exits; the session keeps running on the server (/quit inside the session ends it, or stop the server from its console)

Ctrl+] (byte 0x1d) is deliberately not bound anywhere in the session's keymap, which is what makes it safe to reserve. Reconnect after a network drop is automatic; /quit inside the session is reported and attach exits.