Terminal, Editor, and Notes#

Neoism keeps three complementary views of a project close together: run things in the terminal, change source files in the editor, and preserve project knowledge in Markdown notes.

Terminal#

Create a terminal tab with Ctrl + Shift + T (Cmd + T on macOS). New tabs begin in the active workspace directory and run the configured shell as a real PTY, so interactive programs, job control, mouse reporting, OSC links, and alternate-screen applications work normally.

Useful terminal controls:

• Shift + PageUp / Shift + PageDown scroll a page.
• Shift + Home / Shift + End move to the top or bottom of scrollback.
• Ctrl + =, Ctrl + -, and Ctrl + 0 change or reset font size (Cmd equivalents on macOS).
• Copy, Paste, Clear, and Search are available from the terminal context menu.

A shell's current directory is local to that terminal. It does not move the workspace root or the file tree.

Editor#

Toggle the file tree with Alt + E, then open a file. Neoism's native editor provides line numbers, buffer tabs, selection, undo/redo, project search, diagnostics, and language-server actions. Markdown uses the same editor infrastructure with rendered headings, links, lists, code fences, tables, task boxes, and other document structure.

The optional Vim layer is controlled by editor.vim-mode and can also be toggled with Alt + Shift + Space. The command palette exposes editor actions even when they have no dedicated keybinding.

Use Ctrl + Shift + Left / Ctrl + Shift + Right for the previous or next editor buffer tab (Ctrl + Shift + [ / ] are also available). Editor changes are ordinary changes to files in your workspace and remain visible to Git and shell tools.

Notes#

Press Alt + N to open the notes sidebar. A notes vault is an ordinary folder of Markdown files; Neoism indexes its hierarchy, links, tags, headings, backlinks, and tasks without converting it to a proprietary database.

Notes support familiar wiki-style navigation:

• [[Page Name]] links to another page;
• [[Page Name#Heading]] links to a heading;
• [[@project/Page]] links into a vault associated with another project;
• #tags are indexed for discovery;
• - [ ] and - [x] remain plain Markdown tasks.

Neoism can link the current workspace to a whole notes vault or to a folder inside one. The relationship is cached in .neoism/workspace.json, while the vault's project.json records associated code directories and their nested note scopes for Alt+N, Agent notes, memory, and project-aware page completion. Your note content itself stays as Markdown.

Drawings use Neoism's .neodraw format and can be embedded from Markdown with a fenced draw block that references the drawing file.

Put them together#

A practical layout is a source file beside a terminal, with notes available in the sidebar. Use Alt + Arrow to move focus between panes and panels. This gives an agent the same stable project boundary while you keep commands, implementation, and decisions visible.

Next: Start Your First Agent.