Quick start
Five minutes to a usable session.
1. Launch and explore
Section titled “1. Launch and explore”bun start # from the repo# …or open the .app from /ApplicationsA single workspace opens with one pane. The sidebar on the left shows the workspace list and live status. The pane header shows the foreground command and any listening ports as chips.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
⌘D | Split right |
⌘⇧D | Split down |
⌘W | Close focused pane |
⌘⌥←↑→↓ | Focus neighboring pane |
⌘⇧P | Command palette |
⌘⌥P | Process Manager |
⌘B | Toggle sidebar |
⌘, | Settings |
Full reference: Keyboard shortcuts.
2. Run something interesting
Section titled “2. Run something interesting”In any pane:
cd ~/code/some-projectbun run dev # or npm run dev / cargo run / python -m http.server …Within a second:
- The pane header chip shows
bun run dev. - A port chip appears as soon as the server starts listening — click it to open in a browser.
- The sidebar’s package.json card shows the script as green pulse = running.
⌘⌥Popens the Process Manager — every pid in the descendant tree, with CPU/MEM and a kill button.
3. Drive it from a second shell
Section titled “3. Drive it from a second shell”In another terminal (or another τ-mux pane):
ht tree # workspaces / panes / surfacesht ports # PORT PROTO ADDR PID COMMANDht open # opens the unique listening portht kill 3000 # SIGTERM the pid bound to :3000The CLI talks to τ-mux through the Unix socket in the app’s config dir (~/Library/Application Support/hyperterm-canvas/hyperterm.sock on macOS) — it works from any shell. See CLI overview.
4. Try a sideband panel
Section titled “4. Try a sideband panel”Sideband channels let scripts inside the terminal stream structured content (images, charts, interactive HTML) into floating overlays. Demo scripts ship with the repo:
python3 scripts/demo_dashboard.py # CPU + memory + clock panelsbun scripts/demo_draw.ts # mouse-driven SVG drawingpython3 scripts/demo_chart.py # matplotlib SVG chartThe protocol is documented in Sideband overview. Client libraries are no-ops outside τ-mux, so the same script runs unmodified in a regular terminal.
5. Open the web mirror
Section titled “5. Open the web mirror”The mirror streams the full UI over WebSocket. Enable it in Settings → Network → Auto-start Web Mirror, then visit http://<your-ip>:3000 from any device on the LAN. Set an auth token in the same panel if the network isn’t fully trusted.
More: Web mirror overview.
What’s next
Section titled “What’s next”- Architecture — how the pieces fit together.
htCLI reference — every command grouped by domain.- Sideband protocol — render structured content from scripts.
- Settings — every knob, with what each one actually does.