Zentty Docs

Worklanes & Panes

Use Zentty's native workspace model: worklanes for context, columns for visible focus, panes for shells and agents.

Applies to current public Zentty builds. Last updated May 11, 2026.

Worklanes

A worklane groups panes for one stream of work. Use worklanes instead of overloading one tab strip: one for the app, one for the website, one for a release, one for an investigation. The sidebar shows each worklane with its title, color, panes, focused state, and agent attention state.

Create a worklane with Cmd+T.
Move between worklanes with Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab.
Move a worklane in the sidebar with Ctrl+Cmd+Up or Ctrl+Cmd+Down.
Assign a color from the sidebar or with zentty worklane color.

Rule of thumb: use a worklane for a durable context and a pane for a live process. If you would name the task in a notebook or PR, it probably deserves a worklane.

Window

Worklane: website

Column 1Pane: shellPane: tests

Column 2Pane: Claude

Column 3Pane: logs

Panes And Columns

A pane is a terminal session. A column is a vertical stack of panes. Worklanes scroll horizontally across columns, which lets a pane stay readable even when the worklane contains many shells.

Cmd+D              Add pane right
Shift+Cmd+D        Add pane below
Cmd+Arrow          Focus by direction
Option+Shift+Cmd+Arrow
                   Resize by direction

Horizontal Scrolling

Worklanes can contain more columns than the current window can display. Zentty keeps the focused pane readable first, then lets extra columns live to the left or right of the visible area. Use width presets to decide how many columns are visible; use focus commands or trackpad scrolling to move through the rest.

Minimum readable width: right splits become scrollable when a visible split would make the focused pane too narrow. Use [pane_layout].visible_split_window_width when you want to tune that threshold.

Layouts

Width presets define how many columns are visible. Height presets define how many panes fit per column. Golden presets bias attention toward or away from the focused pane.

Cmd+1 through Cmd+4: full, halves, thirds, quarters.
Option+Cmd+1 through Option+Cmd+4: one through four panes per column.
Ctrl+Cmd+G variants: golden width and height arrangements.
Option+Ctrl+Cmd+0: reset the pane layout.

Preset	Use It For
`full`	One pane or one focused pair on a laptop.
`halves`	Editor plus tests, agent plus review pane, or local plus remote.
`thirds`	Agent, app server, and verification output at the same time.
`quarters`	Wide monitors with several passive watchers.
`golden-wide`	Keep the active pane dominant while preserving neighbor context.
`golden-tall`	Make the focused pane taller inside a stacked column.

full

halves

thirds

quarters

golden-wide

golden-tall

Search, Copy, And Context

Pane search stays local to the current pane. Global find searches across the window. Copy Path copies the focused pane working directory. Clean Copy strips terminal artifacts from copied output; Copy Raw remains available as an unbound command.

Task	Command	Result
Pane-local find	`Cmd+F`	Search only the focused pane.
Window-wide find	`Shift+Cmd+F`	Search panes in the current window.
Selection to find	`Cmd+E`	Use the selected terminal text as the next search query.
Next / previous match	`Cmd+G` / `Shift+Cmd+G`	Move through matches in the active scope.

Bookmarks

The bookmarks popover preserves reusable workspace shapes: title, working directories, worklane color, pane layout, labels, and launch targets. Terminal scrollback is not treated as durable project state. Bookmarks live in ~/.config/zentty/bookmarks.json, so dotfile managers can sync them if you are comfortable syncing local paths.

Re-apply a bookmark when a release, review, or incident workflow repeats.
Edit or delete stale bookmarks from the popover or by editing the JSON while Zentty is closed.
Pair bookmarks with CLI recipes when you want the same structure from scripts.

Open With

Open With targets are based on the focused pane's current working directory. Built-in targets are detected first, then custom apps are added in the order stored in config. If an app is missing, Zentty skips it rather than showing a broken launcher.

[[open_with.custom_apps]]
id = "my-editor"
name = "My Editor"
path = "/Applications/My Editor.app"

Restore

Restored	Not Restored	Skip Conditions
Windows, worklanes, columns, panes, working directories, labels, colors	Ephemeral process state and most terminal scrollback	Empty panes, short-lived shells, missing directories
Supported agent session metadata and resume commands	Unsupported agent internal memory	Agent has no stable session id or resume command
Most recent closed pane via `Shift+Cmd+T`	Manual changes made after the pane was closed	Insufficient close snapshot

Mouse Workflows

Drag pane dividers to resize within layout constraints.
Use sidebar context menus for worklane color, rename, and bookmark tasks.
Move pane focus with the mouse when the target is visible; keep keyboard focus commands for hidden columns.
Drag-out and move-to-window workflows use the same pane snapshot model as keyboard commands.

Workspace Recipes

Feature branch One worklane for the branch. Keep editor or shell on the left, agent on the right, tests below the agent, and use thirds when logs need their own column. Save the shape as a bookmark.

Bug investigation Use one pane for reproduction, one for source search, one for the agent. Color the worklane amber until the root cause is known.

Release pass Create a worklane with changelog, test runner, package/build command, and a notes pane. Bookmark the shape if the release checklist repeats.

Parallel agents Give each agent its own pane. Script the setup with zentty split right and zentty layout thirds. If an agent uses tmux-style teams, enable Agent Teams.