quickstart ​

Open a terminal in any project directory and run:

kage

You land in the interactive TUI. The cursor sits in the input card at the bottom of the screen, ready for your prompt.

a first turn ​

Type a question or a task and press Enter:

explain what this repository does in one paragraph

The assistant streams its response into the conversation buffer above the input card. Tool calls (file reads, shell commands, edits) show up as their own blocks with their inputs, outputs, and timing.

Cancel a running turn with Ctrl+C. Quit with Ctrl+Q or by typing :q.

modal navigation ​

kage is modal in the vim sense.

Esc returns to Normal from anywhere. i enters Insert.

the conversation buffer ​

In Normal mode with the buffer pane focused (Ctrl+W cycles panes):

• j / k scroll one line
• G snaps to the bottom and re-arms auto-follow
• [ / ] move focus between blocks
• zM folds every block, zR unfolds
• / starts a buffer search, n and N walk matches
• y yanks the current selection

switching models mid-session ​

Type :model <provider>:<model> or open the model picker with Ctrl+P. The next turn uses the new model; prior history is preserved verbatim.

recording and resuming ​

Every session is recorded to ~/.local/share/kage/sessions/<id>.jsonl unless you pass --no-session. Resume the most recent session with:

kage resume --last

List recorded sessions:

kage list

Fork a session at a specific entry to try a different path without losing the original:

kage fork <session-prefix> --at <entry-prefix>

print mode ​

For scripted use, run a single prompt and stream the response to stdout:

kage -p "summarize this Cargo.toml" --model anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6 < Cargo.toml

next steps ​

• Keybindings - the full key map
• Commands - everything the : and / palettes accept
• Plugins - extend kage in Lua