TUI

Customize Xal's terminal interface, keyboard shortcuts, transcript details, and terminal notifications.

Display preferences

Run /config in the TUI to change display preferences. Changes save immediately to the user configuration and apply to the current transcript. Both preferences default to false.

Option	Type	Default	Description
`showOutputs`	`boolean`	`false`	Expand tool outputs and other transcript details.
`showThinking`	`boolean`	`false`	Include model reasoning in the transcript.

These values live under pluginConfig.tui:

{
  "pluginConfig": {
    "tui": {
      "showOutputs": false,
      "showThinking": false
    }
  }
}

The display.toggle-details shortcut, Ctrl+O by default, temporarily toggles transcript details for the current session without changing showOutputs.

Keybindings

Application shortcuts can be replaced under pluginConfig.tui.keybindings. Each action accepts an ordered array of bindings. The array replaces that action's defaults, and an empty array disables the action. Restart Xal after changing keybindings.

{
  "pluginConfig": {
    "tui": {
      "keybindings": {
        "composer.external-editor": ["ctrl+e"],
        "display.clear": ["ctrl+l", "ctrl+k"],
        "display.toggle-todos": [],
        "agents.stop-all": ["ctrl+x ctrl+s"]
      }
    }
  }
}

A binding is a key with optional ctrl, alt, shift, or super modifiers joined by +. Separate strokes with a space to form a sequence. control, meta, option, cmd, and command are accepted aliases. Key and modifier names are case-insensitive.

Action	Default bindings
`agents.open`	`ctrl+x ctrl+a`
`agents.stop-all`	`ctrl+x ctrl+k`
`app.cancel`	`ctrl+c`
`composer.clear`	`ctrl+u`
`composer.external-editor`	`ctrl+g`
`composer.newline`	`shift+enter`, `alt+enter`, `ctrl+j`
`composer.paste-image`	`ctrl+v`
`display.clear`	`ctrl+l`
`display.toggle-details`	`ctrl+o`
`display.toggle-todos`	`ctrl+t`
`history.open`	`escape escape`, `ctrl+r`
`jobs.background`	`ctrl+b`
`session.next-mode`	`shift+tab`
`thinking.decrease`	`alt+,`
`thinking.increase`	`alt+.`

display.clear removes the visible transcript and pre-launch terminal scrollback while keeping Xal's startup header, active session, and composer draft.

Malformed bindings, unknown actions, duplicate assignments, and bindings that are prefixes of other bindings fail startup. Popover navigation, completion selection, task-list navigation, and ordinary text editing remain component-owned and are not remapped by this setting.

Terminal notifications

The TUI always emits OSC 9;4 progress while Xal is working and an OSC 777 notification when a turn completes, fails, or is interrupted. Notifications include the trailing 200 characters of visible assistant output, are not gated by terminal focus, and use tmux passthrough automatically. OSC lifecycle signaling is built in and has no configuration.