Terminal User Interface guide

Launch the terminal UI with:

cerebro tui

Or run the standalone binary directly:

cerebro-tui

The Terminal User Interface provides a rich, interactive terminal interface for browsing all your project activity data, including sessions, commits, TODOs, journal entries, and manual notes, without leaving your terminal.

Layout

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Cerebro TUI                                         │
├──────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Dashboard│  [Content area: changes per view]       │
│ Projects │                                          │
│ Journal  │                                          │
│ TODOs    │                                          │
│ Config   │                                          │
├──────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ r refresh  b build  Space leader  q quit  ? help    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Main views

Key	Action
`j` / `↓`	Next item in sidebar
`k` / `↑`	Previous item in sidebar
`Tab`	Cycle focus between sidebar and content
`Shift+Tab`	Cycle focus backward
`Enter`	Switch to selected view from sidebar
`1` / `g`	Dashboard
`2`	Projects
`3`	Journal
`4`	TODOs
`5` / `G`	Config

Leader key

Press Space then a letter to jump directly:

Sequence	Action
`Space` `d`	Dashboard
`Space` `p`	Projects
`Space` `j`	Journal
`Space` `t`	TODOs
`Space` `c`	Config

The leader key is active everywhere except during text input, such as journal editing, note editing, or form input. Press Esc to cancel a pending leader sequence.

Focus management

Key	Action
`Right` / `l`	Move focus from sidebar to content
`Left` / `h`	Move focus from content to sidebar

Views

Dashboard

Summary of all projects with session counts, commit counts, and TODO counts. Press Enter on a project to drill into its detail view.

Projects

Without a selected project, the view shows a list of all projects with activity counts. Navigate with j/k, press Enter to select.

After selecting a project, three tabs appear:

Key	Tab
`1`	Sessions
`2`	Commits
`3`	TODOs
`Tab`	Next tab
`Shift+Tab`	Previous tab

Within each tab, navigate items with j/k. Press Enter on a TODO to preview its full context. Press e to edit the project’s status/next notes. Press Esc to deselect and return to the project list.

Journal

Shows journal entries from all projects. Date headers, such as ### 2026-04-25, group the entries, or the view shows a single entry per project if no date headers exist.

Key	Action
`j` / `↓`	Next entry
`k` / `↑`	Previous entry
`g`	First entry
`G`	Last entry
`Enter`	View full entry
`i`	Edit journal for the selected project
`Esc`	Close preview / cancel edit

Journal entries come from ## Journal sections in your project notes files under content/notes/projects/. If no journal sections exist, the view is empty.

Key	Action
`r`	Refresh data from all sources
`b`	Run `cerebro build`, which generates the dashboard
`q`	Quit
`?`	Toggle help overlay
`Esc`	Close overlays, go back

Mouse support

Click any item in the sidebar to switch views. Click a project in the project list to select it.

What the Terminal User Interface does

Browse OpenCode sessions, git commits, and TODOs per project
View project status and next-session notes
Edit status and next notes directly from the TUI
Read journal entries from daily logs
Toggle project active/inactive status
Add new projects to config
Refresh data on demand
Build the markdown dashboard from the TUI

What the Terminal User Interface doesn’t do yet

Session message content: Sessions show titles and timestamps but not individual messages
Session preview: Can’t view the conversation inside a session
Commit diff: Shows commit messages but not file changes
TODO editing: Can view TODOs but not mark them complete, since they are code comments
Search/filter: No text search across sessions, commits, or TODOs yet
Activity graph: No heatmap or timeline visualization
Multi-project comparison: Can’t view two projects side by side
Git branch info: Doesn’t show current branch or uncommitted changes per project

Cerebro