Quick Start

This guide walks you through the core kexsh workflow: creating terminals, splitting your view, and navigating between panes.

Start the server

kexsh runs a background server that manages your terminal sessions. Start it first:

kexsh server start

Server started (pid: 12345)

The server daemonizes automatically — it keeps running after you close this terminal.

Create a terminal

kexsh terminal create

This creates a new terminal instance, assigns it a short ID (like a3f), wraps it in a temporary view, and drops you into it. You’re now inside kexsh.

Split your view

Press Ctrl-a to enter Command mode, then press s to split horizontally:

Ctrl-a → s

You now have two panes side by side, each running a shell. The left pane has focus.

To split vertically instead, use Ctrl-a → v.

Navigate between panes

In Command mode (Ctrl-a), use vim-style keys to move focus:

Key	Action
h	Focus left
j	Focus down
k	Focus up
l	Focus right

To resize panes, use the uppercase variants: H, J, K, L.

Press Esc to return to Normal mode (input goes to the terminal).

Detach and reattach

Close your terminal window or press Ctrl-a → d to detach. Your terminals keep running in the background server.

Reattach later:

kexsh terminal attach a3f

Or list all running terminals first:

kexsh terminal ls

ID    NAME    STATUS    CREATED
a3f   —       running   2 minutes ago
b7c   —       running   30 seconds ago

Next steps

• Learn about Core Concepts — how Terminals, Views, and Panes relate
• Browse the Command Reference for the full CLI
• Set up Cloud Sync to access terminals from anywhere