Terminal modes

Development reference · View source

Mode	Keys go to	Shown as
Insert	The program, except Runyte’s few exceptions	`[insert]` in the pane title
Live Normal	Runyte; the screen keeps updating	No title marker
Normal/review	Runyte; a frozen snapshot you can navigate and copy	Review marker in the title, grayed text

 INSERT ──Ctrl-\──▶ live NORMAL ──Ctrl-\ or a review command──▶ NORMAL/review
   ▲                    │                                           │
   └──────── i, a, o, or another terminal insert key ◀──────────────┘

The title answers whether typing reaches the child, so NORMAL is unmarked: the mode line already says it.

Terminal Insert mode

Every key belongs to the program except:

Key	Effect
`Ctrl-\`	Leave to live Normal mode
`Ctrl-w`	Start the window prefix
`Ctrl-h/j/k/l`	Move between panes, only with `editor.fast_pane_keys` on
`Shift-Left` / `Shift-Right`	Visit the previous / next running session, in mux mode (remappable)

Escape, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-o, Space, and ordinary keys reach the child unchanged.
Window keys from a terminal. Ctrl-w h/j/k/l and their control-key aliases move to another pane at once. Ctrl-w v/s split, leaving the child live in the original pane; the new pane opens the working-directory explorer, as Space E does. Ctrl-w f/z toggle full-screen and zen from terminal Insert, live Normal, Normal/review, and Select without changing the mode. Bare Ctrl-w, or cancelling the prefix, keeps the current mode. Window actions never capture or discard a review snapshot.
Arriving at a pane. Every focus route — these keys, pane cycling, a mouse click — enters a live terminal in Insert mode. A terminal with a captured review stays in review until i, a, o, or another insert key. A document reached from Terminal Insert starts in Normal.
Ctrl-\ spelling. On macOS, Runyte asks for unambiguous Ctrl-key reports without repeat and release events. A terminal without that protocol sends legacy control bytes, where Ctrl-\ arrives as Ctrl-4; both work.

Review mode

Review navigates and copies. It does not edit. The screen is a picture of the program’s text, and the program owns its own input area, so an edit to those cells would be an edit to a picture. Commands that would edit are refused rather than applied to the buffer behind the pane.

A second Ctrl-\, or the first review command used from live Normal, captures the bounded output as an immutable snapshot. New output keeps arriving behind it.

Motions move a visible review caret and keep it within the viewport margin.
v enters Select mode; motions then extend inclusively through both the start and end characters, in either direction. Escape cancels a selection.
The title marks review and newer output, and the reviewed text is grayed, so a frozen image never looks like a live program.
Moving to another pane does not start review; returning to a reviewed terminal keeps its snapshot.
A live terminal keeps its own colours. Alternate-screen review holds only the captured visible screen.

Pasting back into the program:

Key	Sends	Afterwards
`p` / `P`	Runyte’s selected register	Insert mode, so the next key (usually Enter) reaches the child
`Space c p` / `Space c P`	The system clipboard	Stays in Normal mode
`u`	One delete per character of the last paste	Undoes that paste

Both routes leave review first and write at the child’s real cursor, never into captured output.
u works only while the paste is still the child’s last input: any key typed into the terminal ends it. It is refused for a paste that ended a line the child has already run, since what ran is the child’s. A shell at a prompt erases exactly the paste.

i leaves review and types again.