Workspaces

Give each project or task its own workspace. Keep its terminals and layout together, then use names and categories to find it easily. If the window structure is new to you, start with A first look.

Creating

The terminal in a new Workspace starts in the working directory of the current terminal (Settings > Terminal > Inherit working directory, on by default).

To start with a non-terminal Surface or to set the name at creation, use the CLI.

tasty new workspace --name build --cwd ~/proj
tasty new workspace --type explorer --path ~/proj
tasty new workspace --type markdown --file README.md

Name · subtitle

The default name is a sequence number such as Workspace 1. Right-click the sidebar card to change it.

• Rename — shortcut F3.
• Change Subtitle — the small text under the card. Shortcut F4.

tasty set workspace --id 3 --name api --subtitle "port 8080"
tasty list workspaces

Switching

• Click a sidebar card.
• Alt+1 to Alt+9 (macOS Cmd+1 and so on). Hold Alt and a number keycap appears next to each card showing which number it is.
• Alt+J / Alt+K — next / previous Workspace. Wraps around at either end.
• The Jump button in the notification panel — goes to the Surface or Workspace that sent the notification. The button is disabled if the source has closed.

The modifier and number keys are changed in the Workspace switch modifier item under Settings > Keybindings.

Each Workspace remembers its own focused Pane. Switch away and back and the cursor is where you left it. Switching scrolls the sidebar list automatically so the active card is visible.

Reordering

• Drag a card.
• Right-click a card > Move Up / Move Down.
• tasty move workspace --id 5 --to 0 — names the Workspace by ID, so it moves in whichever window owns it even when several are open. tasty list workspaces shows the IDs.
• tasty move workspace --from 2 --to 0 (counting from 0) — a position inside one window, so with several windows open it moves in the one you are looking at.

Marks on a card

When the sidebar is collapsed (Collapse, Ctrl+B) the cards become square icons and the marks shrink with them. The dot at the top right shows only the most urgent one, without a count — yellow is waiting for input, blue is a finished job, green is running. The REMOTE pill turns into a sky-blue chip at the bottom right. When another user holds the Workspace remotely, the lavender border wraps the whole square icon instead of the dot.

Closing and restoring

• Right-click a card > Close Workspace, or Alt+Shift+W.
• A remote mirror card also shows Disconnect Workspace. On a mirror, Close Workspace closes the Workspace on the remote computer, while Disconnect leaves the remote running and closes only your mirror (Closing and disconnecting a mirror).
• Ctrl+W is Close active — if only one Tab is left it closes the Pane, and if only one Pane is left it closes the Workspace.

A workspace holding a terminal someone is using over a remote attach will not close; you get a notice instead. Someone is working in that terminal right now, and closing it would end their session without warning. To take it back, press Force detach on the occupancy badge, then close again. If you would rather not switch to that Workspace, right-click its sidebar card instead — a Force detach item appears only while it is occupied, and it goes through a confirmation first.

Closed Workspaces · Panes · Tabs · Surfaces are restored with Ctrl+Shift+T (Restore closed), most recently closed first. A terminal’s scrollback comes back with it. The shell is started fresh, though, so a program that was running does not come back. This list lives only in memory and is gone when Tasty exits.

A terminal whose scrollback is very large (beyond about 64 MiB across everything being closed) is kept in the list without its scrollback, and the close goes ahead. A warning is left in the notification panel. If you closed it in a Workspace opened over remote attach, a warning notice appears once in the window you closed it from. Restoring it opens that terminal in the same directory with an empty scrollback, while the other terminals closed with it get their scrollback back.

Grouping into categories (folders)

When you have many Workspaces, turn on Settings > General > Workspace categories (folders). The sidebar changes into collapsible sections.

• The default section Workspaces is always at the top and cannot be renamed or deleted.
• Click a section header — collapse / expand. The Collapse/expand all categories shortcut is empty by default, so assign it yourself.
• Right-click a header — Add workspace · Create workspace from preset… · Add remote workspace · Rename category · Delete category · New category.
• Right-click an empty area — New category · Add remote workspace.
• Right-click a Workspace card — Move to category. Dragging it to another section also works.
• Deleting a category does not delete the Workspaces in it; they return to the Workspaces section.

With categories on, the New Workspace button under the sidebar disappears and you create Workspaces from the header menu. Alt+N creates one in the category the current Workspace belongs to.

Switching shortcuts also gain a category level.

Turning categories off again merges all Workspaces into the single Workspaces section.

tasty workspace-category list
tasty workspace-category create --name work
tasty new workspace --name api --category work
tasty set workspace --id 3 --category work

Naming a category that does not exist is an error, and the Workspace is neither created nor renamed.

Restoring after a restart

When you run Tasty again, the Workspace · Pane · Tab · Surface layout of the previous window comes back as it was. The related settings are under Settings > General.

• Restore layout on startup (on by default) — when off, the saved copy is deleted when the window closes.
• Restore surface content on restart (on by default) — also preserves each terminal’s scrollback. Scroll up and the previous session’s output is there. Turning it off deletes all stored scrollback files.

If the saved size of one window’s terminal scrollback adds up to more than 64 MiB, that window’s layout and content are not saved and the previous save is kept. The saved size holds color and cell information besides the characters, so it is larger than the text that was printed. Clear the scrollback with printf '\e[3J' in the terminal that holds the large scrollback and saving resumes shortly.

What is not restored — programs that were running, environment variables, popups that were open. The shell starts fresh in the same directory. Programs that leave a session-resume command, such as Claude Code, are run again automatically (Working with Claude · Codex).

The save file is ~/.tasty/layouts/01.json. With several windows open, each window gets its own 02.json, 03.json, and the next time you open a new window it takes over the empty slots in order. Only one window appears on restart; the remaining slots are restored when you open a new window (Alt+Shift+N).

Running Tasty again while it is already running does not start a second Tasty. Launched from the app menu or a launcher, the open window comes forward; running tasty in a terminal opens one new window that takes over the next empty slot (on Windows, launching from the terminal in front may bring the open window forward instead). See Running Tasty again for details.

To reuse a layout that is not a restore target, save it as a preset — Saving layouts.