Switchboard includes a full built-in terminal powered by xterm.js. You can launch new Claude Code sessions or attach to existing ones without leaving the app.
- Click a session in the sidebar to open it in the terminal. If the session has an active process, you attach to its running PTY. If not, a new Claude CLI process is launched.
- Click New Session (the
+button next to a project) to start a fresh Claude Code session for that project. - A Terminal row (the
+button's Terminal entry) is a plain shell, not a Claude session. Clicking it after its shell has exited gives that same row a new shell — one row, the one you clicked, not a second one beside it.
Click Shell in the terminal header to open a shell in the right-hand panel, under whatever the panel is showing — the Changes list, a file, or a diff. Both stay visible; drag the horizontal handle between them to give one more room. The height is remembered.
With nothing open above it, the shell takes the whole panel and there is no handle to drag. Open a list or a file again and the shell goes back to the height you last dragged it to.
The shell starts in the session's own working directory, worktree included —
the same directory the Changes panel reads and a claude --resume targets. You
never pick the path, and it cannot drift from the one the session really runs
in.
One shell per session. Switching to another session leaves it running and puts
it back, with whatever it printed meanwhile, when you come back. Click Shell
again to close it, which stops it. It also stops when the session's terminal
goes away (relaunching a session, stopping it, quitting the app). If the shell
exits by itself — exit, or a command that kills it — the region keeps its
output so you can read it, and says so; toggle Shell off and on for a new
one.
A panel shell is not a session: it never appears in the sidebar, never counts towards "N running" in the status bar, and is never restored at startup.
Remote sessions get no panel shell — Switchboard attaches to an existing remote tmux session but has no way to start a new remote one. The panel says so instead of showing a terminal.
Right-click behavior in the terminal is configurable. Open Global Settings and look for Terminal Right-Click:
| Setting | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Context menu (default) | Shows a context menu with file-link actions, copy, paste, and select all |
| Paste clipboard | Right-click pastes the clipboard directly (PuTTY-style) |
| Native (xterm) | Passes the click through to xterm's built-in handler |
| Do nothing | Right-click has no effect |
The setting takes effect immediately on the next right-click — no restart required.
When Context menu is selected, right-clicking opens a menu. The items shown depend on what the cursor is over:
Over a file link (OSC 8 file:// hyperlink):
- Open in panel — open the file in the IDE side panel
- Open in system editor — open with the OS default application
- Copy path — copy the absolute file path to the clipboard
Over a URL (http:// or https://):
- Open in browser — open in the system browser
- Copy link — copy the URL to the clipboard
Always present:
- Copy — copy the current selection (only shown when text is selected)
- Paste — paste the clipboard
- Select all — select all terminal output
Drag one or more files from your file manager (or macOS Finder) into the terminal. Switchboard inserts the shell-escaped absolute path(s) at the cursor, separated by spaces — exactly as if you had typed them.
Press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on macOS) to open xterm's built-in search bar inside the terminal. This searches through the terminal scrollback buffer, not the session transcript. In the search bar, press Enter to jump to the next match and Shift+Enter for the previous one; Esc closes it.
Press Shift+Enter to insert a literal newline in the terminal input without submitting. This lets you compose multi-line prompts before sending.
The default session-navigation shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+Arrows, Ctrl+Shift+[/]) are captured before they reach the terminal, so they never interfere with terminal editing. See Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list and how to rebind them.
Open Global Settings to change the terminal theme (Terminal Theme) and right-click behavior (Terminal Right-Click). Both are global-only settings. Shell selection (Shell Profile) is also global — changes take effect for new sessions only. See Settings Reference.