---
title: "Terminal"
description: "Open a real shell on the computer a session runs on, next to the chat, and work alongside Indent."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.indent.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Terminal

Every session has a **Terminal** tab in the tool panel: an interactive shell on the same computer
the session runs on. In the desktop app in Local mode that's your own machine. In a cloud session
it's the sandbox. The tab is in the web app too, so a terminal is one click away wherever the
session is open.

## Open a terminal

Select **Terminal** in the tool panel toolbar at the top of the session. Opening the tab starts a
shell if none is running, and the **Shell** chip in the transcript opens the same panel.

![The Terminal tab in the session tool panel, running git log in the session's working directory](/images/terminal-panel.png)

- **New terminal** adds another shell. Tabs reorder by dragging, and each tab shows its exit status
  once its shell ends.
- Closing the last tab closes the panel.
- The shell runs on the computer, not in the window. Reload the app or lose the connection and the
  terminal reattaches with its scrollback intact.

## What you're connected to

The terminal and Indent share the computer, not the shell. You see the same files, services, and
ports, but each has its own shell process, so history, shell variables, and the current directory
are separate.

- **Local session** — your own machine, running your login shell with your environment. Commands run
  with your account's access, so treat the terminal the way you'd treat any shell on your machine.
  It opens in the app's working directory rather than the folder the session uses, so `cd` there
  first.
- **Cloud session** — the sandbox, starting in `/workspace`, with the
  [environment](/getting-started/environments) variables the session was configured with already
  set. Opening the tab wakes a sandbox that has gone to sleep.

## It's a real terminal

The panel is a full terminal emulator, not a command box: colors, mouse reporting, and full-screen
programs such as `vim` and `htop` all work. It resizes with the panel, and scrollback is there
through the scrollbar or Shift+Page Up and Shift+Page Down.

Selecting text copies it. Paste with Cmd+V on macOS, or Ctrl+Shift+V elsewhere; plain Ctrl+V passes
through to the program you're running.

> **Note**
>
> Two neighboring tabs show shells you don't type into: **Bash** is a read-only view of the commands
> Indent runs, and **Processes** shows the services an environment starts in a cloud session.

Source: https://docs.indent.com/working-locally/terminal/index.mdx