The terminal UI
Find your way around Belai's terminal UI. The composer, the footer and its safety switches, slash commands, the keys, the screen switcher, settings and help.
Run belai in a project directory to open the TUI:
cd ~/code/my-project
belaiThe first launch opens Getting started: three ideas with the commands and keys for each, and an offer to install the Vulnetix CLI and sign in. /welcome reopens it.
The screen
- The conversation: your prompts, the agent’s replies, tool calls and their results.
- The composer: where you type.
ctrl+leftandctrl+rightmove by word;homeandendjump to the ends of the line.@attaches a file.!cmdruns a shell line. - The agent strip, in agent mode: the agents that can carry your turn.
tabmoves the highlight. - The footer: the mode, the model, the safety switches, budgets and session intelligence, cycling every few seconds.
Safety switches
The footer shows guardrails: on|off and ask: on|off.
| Key | Switch |
|---|---|
f3 |
Guardrails: the posture gates on prompts and tool results |
f4 |
Ask: stop and ask before a tool call the rules would ask about |
f10 |
The AI Firewall, for this project |
/yolo turns guardrails and ask off together, and on again. See Guardrails.
Keys
Shortcuts use ctrl, shift and the function keys, never alt, because alt chords are unreliable across terminals.
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
shift+tab, f5 |
Cycle the mode: agent, plan, goal, code, auto |
ctrl+q |
Swap between the main model and the fast tier |
f6 |
Reasoning effort |
f2 |
Caveman: terser replies |
ctrl+r, ctrl+t |
Show or hide reasoning and tool calls |
f1 |
The screen switcher. f1 then a letter opens a screen, such as b for budgets or i for intel. |
f12 |
Session intelligence |
esc |
Stop the running turn |
TUI commands lists every key binding the TUI handles.
Slash commands
/ opens autocomplete. /help lists every command and key in a scrollable screen. TUI commands is the full list; the main ones are on the pages for what they do. /settings views and edits settings. Your own custom commands run as /<name>.
Settings
Belai reads a global settings file under ~/.vulnetix/belai/ and a project file at .vulnetix/settings.json. A project file cannot add MCP servers or firewalls, or switch sync on: a repository you clone can only make Belai more careful, never less. Settings file lists every key.