Orca

Terminal

Orca's terminal is the same xterm.js-based terminal VS Code uses, with a few additions tuned for AI-agent workflows.

Ghostty-style terminal — import your Ghostty theme, font, and cursor on first launch
Ghostty-style terminal — import your Ghostty theme, font, and cursor on first launch

Panes & tabs

Terminals are just tabs — see Tabs, panes & split layouts. Splitting a terminal pane gives you two shells side by side. A terminal pane has a close button even when it is the only pane in its tab.

Agent terminal tabs show the agent identity plus live state: working, waiting for input, completed, or completed-but-unread. For Claude and Codex, tab titles can also show the AI Vault conversation name (custom title / thread name) when Orca can map the pane to that session — manual renames still win. A terminal you move to the background reattaches to its own tab when you return, rather than opening a duplicate. Closing a pane just before you quit no longer brings it back on relaunch, and dragging a pane out into its own tab no longer shows it in two tabs at once.

Agent launch commands

Long or multi-line agent launch commands on macOS and Linux reach the agent whole instead of being cut off or run line by line, and startup commands are submitted with a real Enter. These apply to terminals opened after the update; a terminal that was already open keeps its previous behavior until you reopen it.

TUI clipboard (OSC 52)

Many terminal UIs (Zellij, tmux, Neovim, fzf, Grok) copy via OSC 52 instead of OS clipboard APIs. Orca allows those writes by default so copy-from-remote/TUI works over SSH the same way as locally.

Toggle: Settings → Terminal → Allow TUI Clipboard Writes (OSC 52).

Cmd-F opens find-in-scrollback. The find bar reports the current match and total count, with case, regex, and match navigation. Press Cmd-F / Ctrl-F again to focus and select the query; Escape closes the bar. Its focus and close behavior matches the editor search bar.

A plain click on a terminal link (HTTP/OSC 8 URL, file path, workspace, terminal, or task handle) opens a compact action popover instead of navigating immediately. Local web links and links owned by an eligible SSH workspace or capability-verified paired runtime offer Orca Browser and System Browser; older runtimes stay system-only. Web links also get Copy link, which copies the resolved URL (including hidden OSC 8 destinations) without closing the popover — file and workspace destinations stay unchanged. Cmd-click (macOS) / Ctrl-click (Windows / Linux) still opens directly, and Shift+Cmd / Shift+Ctrl-click still uses the link-routing alternate.

Under Settings → Browser → Terminal URL clicks, choose whether a plain URL click opens the action menu, opens directly, or waits for a modifier. Set the middle-click URL behavior separately. Modifier-clicks remain available for one-off alternate routing.

Previewable HTML file links can open in Orca from local, SSH, and paired-runtime workspaces; remote file rows also offer Download & open with default app. If a linked file is already open in a sibling workspace tab, Orca activates that tab instead of opening a duplicate. See HTML viewers.

Turn the popover off under Settings → Browser → Show terminal link actions. With it off, opening a link requires the modifier-click.

Copy terminal context

Right-click a terminal and choose Copy Context to copy a bounded transcript from that pane. Use it when you want to paste recent agent output into another tool without starting an Orca fork.

Use the terminal tab context menu's Copy Session ID to copy the session identifier for scripts, support requests, or other tools.

Reset Terminal

If a crashed program leaves keyboard or mouse modes stuck, right-click the terminal and choose Reset Terminal. It clears the leftover input modes on the host and in the pane without restarting the shell — useful when Shift+Enter or modifier keys stop reaching the app.

Orca no longer switches those modes off just because it reasonably guessed a program had died, so a live program keeps its keyboard modes after a Ctrl+C. SSH terminals clean up after a crashed program the same way local ones do.

Dropping files and screenshots

Drop a file onto a terminal to paste its path at the prompt. macOS screenshot thumbnails can be dropped into a local Claude Code terminal or the new-workspace composer; Orca gives the agent a readable copy of the temporary image so it can actually open it. If a dropped file is skipped, the notice tells you why.

Themes

Terminal color themes are configurable under Settings → Terminal. Orca ships a library of popular themes and lets you customize any of them.

If you imported Ghostty colors, choosing a terminal theme in Orca applies that theme's colors. You do not need to remove your Ghostty config to switch themes.

Color contrast

Under Settings → Terminal → Rendering → Color Contrast, choose Automatic to let Orca keep terminal text legible, Off to preserve your theme's dim and Powerline colors, or Custom to set a contrast target from 1 to 21.

Ghostty import

If you use Ghostty, Orca can import its theme, font, and cursor config on first launch. You can re-run the import later from Settings → Terminal → Import from Ghostty.

Warp theme import

If you've collected themes in Warp, click Import themes from Warp in the terminal-theme picker under Settings → Terminal to bring them in as Orca terminal themes. Orca scans Warp's theme directory for the current OS (~/.warp/themes on macOS, $XDG_DATA_HOME/warp-terminal/themes on Linux, %APPDATA%\warp\Warp\data\themes on Windows) and lets you pick which YAML themes to import. The button next to it, Import from YAML, takes the same picker and points it at any folder of Warp-format .yaml/.yml files — useful when you store themes outside the default location.

Imported themes appear alongside Orca's built-ins in the theme dropdown.

Default shell

Choose the default shell for new local terminal tabs under Settings → Terminal. Leave it blank to use the system default. On Windows, the choices include PowerShell, Command Prompt, and WSL; WSL is offered automatically when wsl.exe --status succeeds. The setting affects new local panes; existing panes and SSH shells keep their current behavior. The + dropdown on the tab bar also shows a submenu so you can open a one-off tab in any shell without changing your default.

For a custom Unix default shell, open Advanced → Shell arguments. Keep -l (default) for a login shell, or choose Custom args and enter one argument per line (for example, --rcfile and its path on separate lines). Leave the custom list empty to launch the shell without arguments. See Terminal settings.

macOS and Linux shell startup

By default, local terminal panes on macOS and Linux open your system shell ($SHELL) as a login shell (-l). With the default arguments:

  • zsh reads .zshenv, .zprofile, .zshrc, and .zlogin in order from $ZDOTDIR, or your home directory if unset.
  • bash reads /etc/profile, then the first of ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile that exists. It does not read ~/.bashrc on its own. If your PATH or version-manager setup (nvm, asdf, mise) lives in ~/.bashrc, source it from the login file bash reads, as most distributions' default ~/.profile already does.

When Orca uses its bash integration wrapper, it starts bash with --rcfile instead of -l; the wrapper sources the same login files without separately sourcing ~/.bashrc.

With a custom shell, the arguments you enter replace the default -l for ordinary local panes. An empty list requests no arguments: unwrapped interactive bash then reads ~/.bashrc instead of the login files. When the terminal daemon is unavailable, Orca's bash or zsh integration can override custom arguments and keep login startup. Agent launches, startup commands, and one-off shell choices do not use this argument setting.

For repos on a WSL filesystem (\\wsl.localhost\...), Orca launches through wsl.exe -d <distro>. For Windows-path repos opened in WSL, Orca translates the cwd to /mnt/<drive>/... and drops you into a login bash.

Orca provides the Orca CLI automatically in managed WSL terminals.

Shortcuts

  • Cmd-T — new terminal tab in the current worktree.
  • Cmd-Alt-T (macOS) — new agent tab using your default agent. On Linux and Windows this chord ships unbound; assign one under Settings → Shortcuts (search for "New agent tab"). Each supported agent also has its own per-agent "New agent tab" action — bind a chord to launch a specific CLI directly without going through the default.
  • Cmd-W — close the current tab.
  • Cmd-\ — split right.
  • Cmd-Shift-\ — split down.

Native key bindings

Orca advertises the kitty keyboard protocol, so terminal apps see real Shift+Enter, Ctrl+Enter, and other modifier-aware keystrokes — the bindings work the same in Orca as they do in Ghostty, WezTerm, or your native terminal. On macOS, Option/Alt shortcuts reach terminal apps on ABC keyboards in the default Auto mode.

Native key bindings via the kitty keyboard protocol — Shift+Enter and friends reach the agent CLI exactly like in your standalone terminal.
Native key bindings via the kitty keyboard protocol — Shift+Enter and friends reach the agent CLI exactly like in your standalone terminal.

For Japanese JIS keyboards on macOS, enable Settings → Terminal → JIS Yen (¥) to Backslash (\) if you want the physical Yen key to send a backslash in terminal sessions.

Floating terminal

The floating terminal is a global shell surface that's always one chord away, regardless of which worktree or tab you're on. It's on by default for new installs.

  • Toggle it with Cmd+Option+A (macOS) / Ctrl+Alt+A (Linux/Windows). The same chord focuses the panel if it's already open and dismisses it if it's already focused.
  • Click the floating button on the edge of the window, or move the trigger to the status bar under Settings → Terminal → Floating terminal.
  • Set the starting working directory under the same setting (~ by default) so new floating tabs land where you expect.
  • The floating panel hosts its own tabs and supports orchestration setup — kick off background runs without claiming a worktree pane.

Quick Commands

Quick Commands save terminal commands you run often, such as npm run dev, pnpm test, or a project-specific setup script. They can also save reusable agent prompts for launch-time prompt agents such as Claude and Codex. Create them from Settings → Quick Commands or the tab bar's Add command button, then run them from the Quick Commands split-button in a worktree tab bar or from the terminal context menu.

Each command has a label, command text, and scope. Use Global for commands that apply everywhere, or Project to show the command only in worktrees for a specific repo. The tab-bar button opens a fresh terminal tab and runs the command; the terminal context menu can insert commands into the current terminal. Use the copy control on a command row (Settings list, tab-bar menu, or mobile Quick Commands) to put the command body on the clipboard.

When you work with a paired Remote Orca Server (or another execution host), the picker can show local and remote collections side by side, labeled by host (for example Local Mac and Orca Server). Saved on is where the command is stored; running a command still executes in the terminal or workspace where you invoke it — so a client-owned command can run inside a remote worktree. Older servers that do not advertise multi-host Quick Commands fall back to the local-only list.