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Terminal

To open a Terminal tab, click Terminal > New Terminal. The terminal opens in the directory of the folder. Multiple Terminal tabs can be open simultaneously.

To navigate command history, right-click the terminal and choose Blocks under Minimap. Blocks shows one mark for each prompt Zide finds in the output. Point to a mark to see the command. Click the mark to scroll back to that command. To hide it, right-click the terminal or the minimap and choose Hidden.

Terminals start with no minimap. Your choice applies to every terminal and Zide keeps it after a restart.

More actions in the terminal header has Find, Export as Text… (see Save terminal output), and Assist with This. To show the terminal in the Terminals activity, click its name in the header. The terminal has a row there when Zide saves its output.

Scrollback

Each terminal keeps up to 10,000 lines of scrollback by default. To change the number, open Settings > Terminal and select Scrollback Lines. More lines use more memory for each open terminal.

Font and spacing

Open Settings > Terminal > Appearance to change Font Family, Font Size, Line Height, or Character Spacing. Changes apply to open terminal tabs and split panes without restarting their sessions.

  • Font Family defaults to Cascadia Mono, with fallback fonts if it is unavailable.
  • Font Size uses pixels (8–32). The default is 16.
  • Line Height sets the row height multiplier (1–2). The default is 1.1. Try 1.15 for more space between rows.
  • Character Spacing adds space between characters in whole pixels (0–5). The default is 0.

These controls work on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Fonts must be installed on your system. If a selected font is unavailable, Zide uses a fallback monospace font.

On the first launch after this update, Zide resets these four settings to the new defaults, including previously customized values. You can change them afterward; later launches keep your choices. Other terminal settings are unchanged.

To try a font similar to Windows Terminal, select Cascadia Mono at 16–18 pixels. Cascadia Mono must be installed separately if your system does not have it. Windows Terminal measures font size in points: 12 points is approximately 16 pixels before display scaling or zoom.

Text colors

The terminal colors come from the theme. To choose or change a theme, see Colors and themes.

Programs can set their own text and background colors. A color that a program sets stays until the program resets it. After a reset, the terminal uses its usual color again.

If some text is hard to read, open Settings > Terminal and select Improve terminal text contrast. Zide then makes hard-to-read text lighter or darker. This setting is off by default, so programs show their exact colors. When it is on, it can also change exact (RGB) colors that programs set. When Windows uses a contrast theme, Zide always adjusts hard-to-read terminal text.

Script Runner logs, GitHub Actions and pipeline logs, and command output in Zide Assist use the terminal colors.

Find in terminal output

By default, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on macOS) to search terminal output, or right-click the terminal and select Find. Find searches the focused pane’s current screen and retained scrollback. To keep more output, increase Scrollback Lines in Settings > Terminal.

  • Press Enter or Shift+Enter to go to the next or previous match.
  • Click Aa to match case.
  • Click Clear text to empty the Find input.
  • Press Esc to close Find and return to the terminal.

The total shows 1000+ at 1,000 or more matches. If you select a different pane, Find closes.

To send Ctrl+F to the shell instead, set Ctrl+F in Terminal to Send to shell in Settings > Terminal. This setting is not available on macOS.

Click a detected web address or an embedded web link in terminal output to open it. Embedded links can show a label with a dashed underline instead of the address, including Markdown links rendered by Claude Code. Both kinds open directly without an extra confirmation dialog.

Links open in the built-in browser by default, including links in CLI Agent output. A link in a terminal in the detached window opens in the main window’s built-in browser. To change this, open Settings > Browser and change Terminal Links. Saved browser preferences are preserved. Hold Shift while clicking to switch between the internal and external browser. When opening internally, Ctrl+click (Cmd+click on macOS) opens a new Browser tab.

Right-click a web address or an embedded web link to show the terminal menu without opening the link. Select Open Link to open its address. Right-clicking other terminal text shows the usual menu.

Ask Zide about terminal output

Ask Zide answers questions about terminal output in a panel beside the terminal. To open it, right-click the terminal, or click More actions in the terminal header. Point to Assist with This, and under Ask Zide, click Open Ask Zide. You can also press Ctrl+Shift+/ (Cmd+Shift+/ on macOS) while the terminal has focus. Opening and closing the panel does not change the shell or its output.

The empty panel lists the terminal’s commands:

  • Explain Failure explains the last Script Runner run in the terminal that failed. Ask Zide gets the run’s command, working folder, exit code, and the output that Script Runner captured for the run. When the output is long, Ask Zide gets the lines around the errors and the last lines, up to 8,000 characters. The command is unavailable while the run continues, after it succeeds, and after you stop it. A terminal that did not run a Script Runner entry does not show it.
  • Explain Selection explains the text that is selected in the focused pane. Ask Zide gets only the selected text.

Type a question to ask about the end of the focused pane’s output. The first question includes up to 8,000 characters of output from the end of the focused pane, and the pane’s last Script Runner run. Commands that you add with Manage Command List… get the same output. Later questions do not attach new output, but Ask Zide can read the terminal again when it needs to, unless you turn that off (see Zide Assist and terminal output). To attach new output, click Clear Conversation and ask again.

To ask about specific output, select it and right-click it. Point to Assist with Selection, and under Ask Zide, click Ask About Selection. The panel opens and shows the selected text above the message box. Zide sends it with your next question. To not send it, click its remove button. Questions do not include selected text unless you add it this way or click Explain Selection.

Zide tells Ask Zide the shell’s current folder only when the shell reports it. Otherwise, Ask Zide gets the folder that the terminal started in and knows that the current folder can be different. Ask Zide always uses the terminal’s project, also after you change folders in the shell. Ask Zide does not run commands.

Zide Assist and terminal output

Zide Assist can read an open terminal when it needs to, for example when you ask what a command printed. It reads up to 8,000 characters of output from the end of the focused pane, and the pane’s last Script Runner run. Each time, it reads what the terminal shows at that moment. It does not watch the terminal while you work.

To add a terminal to your next message, click More actions in the terminal header or right-click the terminal. Point to Assist with This and click Add to Conversation. Zide reads the output when you send that message. To send newer output in a later message, add the terminal again. When text is selected, Assist with Selection > Add to Conversation attaches only the selected text.

To stop Zide Assist and Ask Zide from reading terminal output on their own, open Settings > Terminal and clear Let Zide Assist read terminal output. They then get terminal output only when you send it: with Add to Conversation, or in Ask Zide with a command, the first question, or Ask About Selection.

Shells

You can open the Terminal tab with different shells. To open a terminal with a specific shell, click Terminal > Shells and select a shell.

By default, a terminal opens in the system default shell. You can change the default shell in Settings.

Split a terminal

To run more than one shell in a Terminal tab, right-click the terminal and select Split Right or Split Down, or press Alt+Shift+= or Alt+Shift+-. The new pane runs the same shell as the pane you split, in the same folder. Press Alt and an arrow key to move between panes. To close a pane, right-click it and select Close Terminal Pane.

The panes share the tab’s name. To see the shell of each pane, point to the tab.

Terminal in a separate window

To use a terminal in a separate window, right-click its tab and click Move to Detached Window, or drag the tab to the detached window. The terminal keeps its shell and its output. See Detached window.

Terminals

The Terminals activity lists this project’s terminals and CLI Agent tabs whose output Zide saves or saved (see Save terminal output). A terminal that you open while saving is off is not listed. To open it, select Terminals in the activity bar, or click Terminal > Terminals.

  • Open Terminals lists those terminals that are still open. Click a row to show the terminal. A terminal in the detached window shows there.
  • History lists terminals that have closed, by date. An ordinary click opens the saved output in a preview, reusing an available preview tab. Ctrl/Cmd-click or middle-click opens it in a separate tab.

A closed terminal is named after its shell or CLI agent and the time it started, for example Git Bash · Oct 20, 5:14 PM. A terminal that you renamed keeps its name. A split pane is saved as its own terminal, with (split pane) after its name.

A row can show one of these labels:

  • Saving: the terminal is open, and Zide saves its output.
  • Not saving: the terminal is open, and saving was turned off.
  • Ended unexpectedly: Zide closed before the terminal ended. The last output can be missing. To remove the label, select Dismiss Warning in the row’s More actions.
  • Saving failed: Zide could not write the output to disk, so saving stopped.

To start a terminal or a CLI agent, click New and select a shell or a CLI agent. The default shell is first, for example PowerShell (Default). CLI Agent Profiles… at the end of the menu opens the profiles.

Click More actions or right-click a row for these commands: Show Terminal, Open Saved Output, Open Saved Output in New Tab, Dismiss Warning, Rename…, Export as Text…, Copy Folder Path, and Delete Saved Terminal…. For an open terminal, Rename… renames its tab, as renaming it in the tab bar does. The panes of a split tab share its name. A command that does not apply to the row is unavailable, and its tooltip tells why. For example, an open terminal shows its output itself, so you cannot open its saved output, and you cannot delete it while Zide saves it.

The activity’s More actions has New, Show Filters, Save Terminal History, Terminal Settings, and Delete Old Terminals….

Filter terminals

Click the Show filters icon, or press Ctrl+F. Type in Search to find terminals by name or by their saved output. Search reads the saved text without the screen layout, so it can miss text that a full-screen program drew in pieces. If Search misses text that you see, open the saved output and use Find. You can also filter by Type (terminal or CLI agent), Status, Folder (the folder the terminal started in), and Date.

When you open a saved output from a search, Find opens in it with your search text. When you click an open terminal in a search, Zide shows the terminal and opens Find in it.

Delete old terminals

To delete saved output, open the activity’s More actions and select Delete Old Terminals…. In Older than, select an age: 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, or Any age. The dialog says how many saved terminals Zide will delete. Open terminals keep their history. You cannot undo the deletion.

To delete the saved output of one terminal, select Delete Saved Terminal… in its row’s More actions.

Save terminal output

Zide can save the output of terminals and CLI Agent tabs, so you can read it after the terminal closes. Saving is off by default. To turn it on, do one of these:

  • Open Settings > Terminal and select Save terminal history.
  • In the Terminals activity, click Turn On, or select Save Terminal History in its More actions.

The setting applies to terminals that are open. A terminal that was open before you turned saving on is saved from that time. Script Runner terminals are not saved, because Script Runner keeps its own history.

Zide saves the output in the .zide/local/terminal-history folder of the project. Storage limit per project in Settings > Terminal sets how much saved output a project keeps: 50 MB to 1 GB, 100 MB by default. When a project has more, Zide deletes the oldest saved terminals first, but not the ones it is still saving. Each terminal keeps the last 3 to 4 MB of its output, and Zide removes earlier output.

To save the output of an open terminal or CLI Agent tab as a text file, click More actions in its header and select Export as Text…. The command exports the focused pane, and is unavailable when Zide saved nothing for it.

Saved output

A saved output tab shows the output of a closed terminal. It looks like a terminal, but you cannot type in it. The line at the top says Read-only saved output, and when the terminal ended and how long it ran, for example Ended 4:52 PM · Ran 30 min. Point to the line to see the exact times and the folder.

Notes below the line tell you when output is missing:

  • Zide closed before the terminal ended. Click the note’s Dismiss button to remove it.
  • Zide removed earlier output to keep the terminal within its size limit.
  • Saving started after the terminal opened.
  • Zide could not write the output to disk, so saving stopped.
  • Output came too fast to save. The places are marked in the output, for example [Zide: 18 KB of output was not saved here].

The tab shows up to the last 200,000 lines. Earlier lines are not shown or exported.

To search the output, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on macOS). To copy, select text and press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on macOS), or right-click and select Copy. More actions has Find, Dismiss Warning, Rename…, Export as Text…, Copy Folder Path, Assist with This, and Delete Saved Terminal…. To show the terminal in the Terminals activity, click its name in the header.

Ask Zide about saved output

Ask Zide works in a saved output tab as it does in a terminal (see Ask Zide about terminal output). To open it, click More actions or right-click the output, point to Assist with This, and click Open Ask Zide. The empty panel lists these commands:

  • Summarize Output says what was done in the terminal, and what succeeded or failed.
  • Explain Selection explains the selected text. Ask Zide gets only the selected text.

Commands and questions get up to 24,000 characters from the end of the saved output, with the terminal’s name, folder, and start and end times. Ask Zide is told when output is missing. To ask about specific output, select it, right-click it, point to Assist with Selection, and click Ask About Selection.

To add saved output to a Zide Assist conversation, point to Assist with This and click Add to Conversation. Zide Assist can also read an open saved output tab when it needs to, unless you clear Let Zide Assist read terminal output in Settings > Terminal.

Close a terminal with running work

The running-process warning applies when you close the terminal tab, close its Project Tab, or quit Zide. It checks all terminal panes and follows your terminal close-warning setting. Declining the warning keeps the tab, project, or application open.