Panes & Tabs

Mosaic gives you full control over how terminal panes are arranged, grouped, and styled. The layout system gives you IDE-level flexibility in a terminal. Every operation preserves running terminal sessions -- rearranging your layout never interrupts a process.

Splitting Panes

Create new terminal panes by splitting the current one:

You can also split from the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) or the pane header context menu (right-click). Each split creates a new independent terminal session with its own shell process.

Tip: When you split from an existing pane, the new terminal inherits the working directory of the parent pane if your shell supports working directory tracking.

Zooming and Full-Screen

Mosaic offers multiple levels of zoom to temporarily expand a pane:

All zoom states are toggles -- press the same shortcut again to return to the previous layout.

Rearranging Panes

Move panes around your layout without closing them:

You can also drag tab headers to rearrange panes between groups. The layout adapts automatically.

Pane Number Overlay

Press Ctrl+Shift+Q to display a tmux-style numbered overlay on every visible pane. While the overlay is showing, press 1 through 9 to jump directly to that pane. The overlay dismisses automatically after selection or timeout.

This is the fastest way to switch between panes when you have many open, especially in complex layouts.

Quick Layout Presets

Switch your entire layout instantly with one click from the command palette or Settings > Layouts:

Beyond the built-in presets, you can:

• Save your current layout as a named preset
• Load any saved preset into the current workspace
• Rename and delete presets
• Export presets as JSON files to share with teammates
• Import presets from JSON files

Manage all presets in Settings > Layouts.

Pane Navigation

Navigate between panes and tabs with keyboard shortcuts:

Tip: Use Ctrl+Tab to cycle between tabs within a group (like browser tabs), and Alt+Arrow to move between groups in the layout.

Tab Colors

Right-click any tab to open a color picker with 20+ color options. The selected color applies as a tint to the group header, creating a visual distinction between groups. Colors are useful for:

• Distinguishing server vs. client terminals
• Marking agent panes by role
• Color-coding by project area (frontend, backend, infra)

Tab colors persist across sessions and are saved with the workspace layout.

Custom Tab Titles

Right-click a tab and select Rename to set a custom title, or clear it to restore the default dynamic title.

Auto-Name from Agent

When a coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, etc.) is running in a pane, Mosaic automatically extracts the first prompt from the agent's session and uses it as the tab name. This gives you instant visibility into what each agent is working on.

Tab Indicators

Tabs display real-time status information at a glance:

Agent State Badges

When a coding agent is detected in a pane, the tab shows a badge indicating the agent's state:

Cross-Workspace Transfer

Drag a tab to a workspace tab in the workspace bar to move that pane to a different workspace. The terminal session stays alive during the transfer -- no output is lost, no process is restarted.

Cross-Context Transfer

Drag panels between contexts within the same workspace. The terminal stays alive, and the reconnect is seamless.

See Contexts for more on organizing panes into independent context environments.

Detach to Popout Window

Press Ctrl+Shift+O to detach the current context into a separate OS window. The context runs independently in its own window with its own title bar. When you close the popout window, the context returns to the main Mosaic window.

Use cases:

• Put a monitoring context on a second monitor
• Keep an agent team visible while working on something else
• Present terminal output without the full Mosaic UI

Pane Capture

Screenshot a pane's content to a file via the pane context menu. This captures the terminal buffer as an image, useful for documentation, bug reports, or sharing terminal output visually.

File Panels Beside Terminal

When you open a file or markdown panel from the terminal (by clicking a path, for example), the panel opens beside the terminal in a separate group rather than inside the terminal's tab group. This keeps your terminal accessible while viewing the file.

Pane Limits

Mosaic supports up to 64 panes per workspace. A warning appears at 48 panes to let you know you are approaching the limit. This limit ensures stable performance even in complex layouts.

Closing Panes

Tip: If you have close confirmations enabled in Settings > Behavior & Confirmations, Mosaic will ask for confirmation before closing panes with running processes.

All Pane & Tab Shortcuts

Related Pages

• Terminal -- search, copy mode, zoom, and all terminal features
• Workspaces -- independent environments with their own layouts
• Contexts -- sub-environments within a workspace
• Getting Started -- installation and first steps