Find and organize sessions

The sidebar lists every session you own and every session shared with you. Each row also shows whether the agent is working or waiting for you. To start a new session, go to the home screen. To copy a session or remove it for good, see Fork or delete a session.

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Find your way around the sidebar

The rows at the top open Alpha’s pages. A count appears beside a row only when it is above zero. Rest the pointer on one of the page rows and Alpha starts loading that page, so it opens faster. Below them, the list runs in this order: Pinned, then Sessions (your groups, Ungrouped, then the day groups), then Shared with you. The day groups are Today, Yesterday, a date for each earlier day of the past week, and Older. Your account menu sits at the bottom; Your account and settings covers it. Press ⌘B (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) to keep the sidebar open or hide it. The button at its top right does the same. While it’s hidden, rest the pointer on the window’s left edge and the sidebar slides in over the page. It closes when the pointer leaves it, or when you press Esc while using it from the keyboard. Peeking needs a pointer, so it doesn’t work on touch screens. Click a row to open the session. To open it in a new browser tab, ⌘-click (Ctrl-click), Shift-click or middle-click it.

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Read a session at a glance

A row shows the session’s title and, when something is happening, a mark beside it: the agent’s marks sit before the title, a routine’s clock after it. The open session’s marks change immediately. The others update when the list refreshes, every 12 seconds while the tab is visible.

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Rest on a row to see more

Rest the pointer on a row for a little over half a second and a card opens beside it. It shows the prompt the session started with, up to 14 lines of it, because the title is only a short name for it. Under the prompt, the card shows the state of the session’s machine. Sleep, wake and reset explains each state.

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Pin, rename and group sessions

Hover a row and click ⋯ (“Session actions”) to open its menu. Only sessions you own have one. A group is a shared name on its sessions, so it exists only while it holds at least one. Moving the last session out removes the group. With Group by set to Custom groups, each group gets its own section above Ungrouped. Click its name to fold it; the open session stays visible. A pinned session shows under Pinned only, not in its group. A fork starts ungrouped. Right-click a group’s name for Rename group or Delete group. Deleting asks first, in Delete group?, for example ““Harbor” will be removed. The 3 sessions in it will no longer be grouped.” The sessions stay. Only the grouping goes.

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Filter, group and sort the list

Click the filter icon beside the Sessions heading (“Filter, group and sort”). A dot on the icon means your view differs from the defaults. Reset to defaults puts them back. Pinned sessions always show, whatever the filters say. If the filters hide everything, the list says “No sessions match this view.” A session is unread when a turn started or ended since you last had it open in this browser. Opening it marks it read. Unread is tracked per browser, so reading a session on your laptop doesn’t mark it read on another device. A browser you’ve never used starts with nothing unread.

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What follows you to another device?

Some of the sidebar’s state is saved on your account, and some only in the browser you set it in.

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Search every session

Click Search in the sidebar, or press ⌘K, to open the search box. Press it again to close it. With the field empty, the box lists your sessions, newest first, then the ones shared with you. Type and the results come in two passes. Title matches show at once, with the matched letters underlined. Matches inside messages follow shortly after you stop typing. Each shows its session, when it was last active and a quote of the matching message. Move through the results with ↑ and ↓, press Enter to open one, and Esc to close. Inside the Shell terminal the shortcut belongs to the shell, and in the code editor it belongs to the editor, so use the Search row there. Content matches come from at most 15 sessions, and nothing says when more matched. A session needs to match only one of your words, and the best matches come first, so the most distinctive word you remember works better than a long phrase. Secrets are masked in quotes.

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Sessions shared with you

Sessions other people share with your account appear under Shared with you, with the owner’s name under each title. They are view only. They have no ⋯ menu, so you can’t pin, rename, group or delete them. Their hover card says who shared them, for example “Shared by Maya Chen · view only”. When the owner’s machine is asleep, it adds “Machine asleep · wakes when its owner is back”. To share your own sessions, see Share a session.

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Next steps