Workspace Overview

The Workspace is where you interact with PandaOS on a specific project. It consists of a header, a main content area, optional side panels, and a bottom dock for navigation.

Layout

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Header: Project path │ Branch │ Status              │
├──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┤
│                          │                          │
│    Main Content Area     │    Right Panel           │
│    (Chat or Terminal)    │    (File Viewer, Git,    │
│                          │     Browser, CLAUDE.md)  │
│                          │                          │
├──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┤
│  Terminal Panel (toggleable)                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Dock: Chat │ Terminal │ Inbox │ ... │ Files │ Git  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Session Header

The header bar shows:

• Project path, shortened path (e.g., ~/Projects/my-app)
• Git branch, current branch name (if the project is a git repo). Click to open the Git panel.
• Status dot, color-coded session state

Workspace Dock

The dock is a persistent bar at the bottom of the workspace that replaces the old header-based tab and panel toggle system. It spans the full width of the window and uses a frosted-glass design.

The dock has three sections:

View Tabs (Left)

Switch between content views:

• Chat, visual chat interface with rich tool call cards, plan approvals, and markdown rendering
• Tasks, Scheduled Tasks for managing and reviewing automated prompt runs
• Terminal, full Claude CLI terminal with the raw claude command
• Integration tabs, additional tabs appear when integrations are connected (e.g., Inbox for Gmail, Database for Supabase, Deployments for Vercel)

The Chat and Tasks icons are grouped in the AI Agents pill, both are AI execution modes. Integration tabs appear in a separate apps section.

The active tab is highlighted with an animated pill indicator and a label.

Drag-to-switch: When dragging content (like an image or email), hover over a tab for 400ms to switch to it automatically.

Switching Between Chat and Terminal

Switching between Chat and Terminal changes the backend:

• Chat mode uses the Claude SDK, a programmatic API connection
• Terminal mode uses the Claude CLI, a PTY running the actual claude command

When you switch, a confirmation dialog appears because the backend change restarts the session. Your conversation history is preserved.

Tip: The Chat and Terminal modes are two views of the same underlying PandaOS interaction. Chat mode gives you a richer UI with tool call cards and plan approvals. Terminal mode gives you the raw CLI experience.

Panel Toggles (Center)

Toggle side panels on and off:

Active panels are highlighted in the accent color.

Utility Buttons (Right)

• Spotlight toggle, enable/disable Spotlight Mode. When on, PandaOS's integration tool calls automatically open the relevant tab and navigate to the right view.
• Home, open the project dashboard
• Support, send feedback or report a bug
• Settings, open settings (Cmd+,)

A dev server indicator also appears here when your project has a dev server running, showing the port number.

Right Panels

The right side of the workspace can show one of these panels (mutually exclusive, opening one closes the others):

• File Viewer, opens when you click a file path in chat or from the file explorer. Shows syntax-highlighted code with tabs for multiple files.
• Git Panel, branch info, staged/unstaged changes, and diff viewer
• CLAUDE.md Panel, view the project's PandaOS instructions file
• Browser Preview, embedded webview showing your dev server

The File Explorer is a separate rightmost panel that can coexist with any of the above panels.

Each panel is independently resizable using drag handles between them.

Bottom Terminal Panel

An independent terminal panel can be toggled at the bottom of the workspace (Cmd+J or `Cmd+``):

• This is a separate shell from the agent terminal, use it for running your own commands
• Supports multiple terminal tabs (click + to add)
• Each tab runs its own shell process
• Resizable by dragging the top edge
• Closing the last tab closes the panel

Panel State Persistence

Panel states are sticky per session:

• Which panels are open, their sizes, and positions are saved per session
• When you switch between sessions, each session restores its own panel layout
• Browser preview and file explorer states persist across app restarts