Product overview¶
Voktty is organized around a small number of persistent surfaces rather than a collection of independent windows.
The main window¶
- The header contains the active space, tab controls, command palette access, agent launcher and notifications.
- The sidebar contains the explorer, source control and history views.
- The tab surface holds terminals, editors, previews and diff views.
- The status bar shows the current working directory, environment, Git state, AI tool state and feature-specific controls.
Tabs are not unmounted when you switch away from them. They become invisible while their PTY sessions, editors and background development servers continue to live. The renderer pool limits active xterm WebGL resources so persistent tabs do not create an unbounded GPU or memory cost.
Tab types¶
| Tab | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Terminal | Interactive local, WSL, SSH, serial or Docker shell session depending on the workspace environment. |
| Editor | CodeMirror document with language support, formatting and conflict-aware saves. |
| Preview | Native web preview for detected local development servers or an external URL. |
| Markdown | Rendered Markdown view for an open document. |
| AI diff | Side-by-side review of a proposed AI edit. |
| Git diff | Diff for a working-tree or staged change. |
| Git history | Commit graph and commit details. |
Command palette¶
Open the command palette with Ctrl+P or Cmd+P. It is the discoverable entry point for actions that may vary by active tab, workspace environment or installed extension. Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P opens content search.
Resource model¶
Voktty keeps expensive features lazy:
- Language servers start only when enabled and a matching document is open.
- AI provider clients are configured when a request is made.
- WebGL renderers are pooled and reclaimed for idle hidden leaves.
- Terminal context is read on demand rather than snapshotted every turn.
- Extensions activate after the first render and are time-bounded.
This lets the application support rich tabs and panes without paying the full cost for every feature at launch.