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Workspace and review

Follow every conversation, inspect files and diffs, run checks, and keep the active context attached to your message.

Osade keeps the conversation, implementation evidence, and repository context in one window, arranged in four parts:

  • Left sidebar — Search, the Tasks, Browser, and Notes views, and your projects.
  • Centre — open conversations and terminals as tabs, with the selected one below them.
  • Side panel — Files, Checks, Changes, Rules, and Notes for the conversation in front of you.
  • Status bar — running agents, chat count, daemon connection, and GitHub sign-in.

Switching tabs does not stop any agent.

The sidebar

The top row has buttons to hide the sidebar and to go back and forward through the tabs you have viewed. Search opens the command center.

Under Projects, each repository shows its conversations grouped by branch. A branch marked primary is the repository's own checkout rather than an isolated worktree. Each conversation row shows its status colour, its agent, its title, and how long ago it was last active. Click a project or a branch's chat count to fold it. Double-click a project's name to rename it. Hover over a project to show its + button, which starts a new session there. The open-folder button beside Projects opens another repository and shows the new-session menu for it. The repository appears under Projects as soon as you pick it, before it has any conversations, and Osade remembers it the next time the window opens. Agents you start yourself in a terminal tab appear under the project in a Terminal card; see Agents started in a terminal tab. The gear at the bottom of the sidebar sets the repository's default agent.

Project menu

Right-click a project to open its menu:

  • New session opens the new-session menu for the project. New terminal opens a terminal tab in its folder.
  • Rename changes the name shown in the sidebar; the folder itself is not renamed.
  • Open in opens the folder in File Explorer (Finder on macOS) or in any of VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or Zed whose command-line launcher (code, cursor, windsurf, zed) is on your PATH. An editor that is installed but has no launcher on PATH is not listed.
  • Copy path copies the folder's full path.
  • Pin to top keeps the project above the others; pinned projects show a pin icon, and the most recently pinned is first. Unpin puts it back in its usual place.
  • Collapse / Expand folds the project, as clicking its name does.
  • Remove project from Osade takes the project out of the sidebar. Its folder, branches, and conversations are not deleted. Opening the folder again with the open-folder button brings it back.

New terminal, Open in, and Copy path are greyed out until Osade knows where the project's folder is. Pins and removals are remembered on this computer only.

Use J and K when you are not typing to select the next or previous conversation.

Tasks (Kanban)

Select Tasks for a workspace-wide status board in the centre. Select it again, or open a conversation, to go back. Cards are derived into these columns:

  • Needs you for approvals or other human input
  • Working for implementing or verifying sessions
  • Failed for failed verification, CI, or external blocks
  • In review for open pull requests
  • Ready to merge for merged work
  • The rest for queued and inactive sessions

Right-click a conversation to archive it from the ledger. Archiving hides the task; it does not kill its underlying agent process.

The conversation and the side panel

The centre shows the conversation: durable user and agent turns, lane filters, approval requests, and the composer. There is no session header; the conversation starts right below the tabs. The bar above it holds the branch menu at the right. Once you open a file or diff, the bar also shows File and Diff to bring them back, and Chat to return to the conversation. When a conversation has more than one lane, a row of lane buttons above it picks which lane the views follow.

The side panel holds the other views. Pick one from its icon row, or press 2 through 6 when you are not typing:

  • Files (2) — the task checkout's file tree, with Git status and insertion/deletion counts. Click a file to open it in the centre, where you can edit it, save with Ctrl+S (Cmd+S), and preview Markdown. Opened files get tabs along the top of the centre; double-click a file in the tree to keep its tab open.
  • Checks (3) — detect, review, edit, confirm, and run the repository's verification plan; inspect the latest result and logs for every step.
  • Changes (4) — working-tree changes and unpushed commits with per-file additions and deletions, plus Open pull request. Click a file to show its diff in the centre, then select lines to ask about.
  • Rules (5) — maintain the repository instructions that are injected into agent sessions.
  • Notes (6) — capture and manage repository-scoped reminders.

Show or hide the panel with the button at the right end of the tab strip. Drag its left edge to resize it, and double-click the edge to reset the width. Osade remembers whether it was open and how wide it was. In windows narrower than 960 px, the sidebar and the panel start hidden. With neither a conversation nor a project terminal open, the panel shows its icons disabled.

An open file or diff stays open while you look at another panel view. Switch back with File or Diff. Focusing a different lane closes them, since that lane has its own working tree.

The panel for a terminal tab

A terminal tab opened for a project (from the new-session menu or the project's right-click menu) gets the same panel, pointed at the project's own folder rather than a task's checkout. This is how you follow an agent you started yourself in the terminal:

  • Files lists the folder with Git status. Files you open can be edited and saved there.
  • Changes shows the folder's uncommitted changes against HEAD, and commits not yet pushed to the branch's upstream. It has no Open pull request section.
  • Rules and Notes are the project's, as in a chat.
  • Checks has nothing to show; verification plans run for chat lanes only.

Files and Changes refresh every two seconds. A file or diff you open covers the terminal. The terminal keeps running underneath, and the Terminal chip above the viewer switches back to it. Open files are closed when you switch to another tab.

Ask about what you are viewing

The composer stays below the centre. Osade prepares context from what you are looking at:

  • the whole open file, or the selected lines, while a file is in the centre;
  • the focused check and its log tail in Checks;
  • the current diff hunk while a diff is in the centre;
  • the focused rule in Rules.

The attachment appears above the composer and is prepended to the next message. Dismiss it when you want to ask without that context. With a diff in the centre, the Ask button can also copy the selected lines into the composer explicitly.

Command center

Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on macOS) to search conversations and run workspace actions. It includes new chat, Plan, List/Kanban, Browser, quick note, Notes, start agent, run checks, and request pull request. Use the arrow keys and Enter to run an item.

See Verification and publishing for checks and approval gates.