Tabs and agents
Each chat tab is its own agent with its own mode. Agents can start other agents, and never with more freedom than they have.
Chat tabs are agents
Out of the box there are three chat tabs, Orchestrator, Engineer and QA, plus Notes. You named them during first run; /rename <name> renames the current tab.
Each chat tab has its own agent, its own conversation and its own permission mode. Running work in one tab does not block another: Esc stops only the tab you are in.
Each tab can use its own model. The defaults live under models.tabs in ~/.8gent/settings.json; /model and /provider change the current tab for this session. On a Mac each tab also speaks in its own voice (Daniel, Karen and Moira by default).
| Key or command | What it does |
|---|---|
Ctrl+T | New chat tab |
Ctrl+W | Close this tab |
Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 | Jump to a tab |
/rename <name> | Rename this tab |
Utility tabs
| Command | Opens |
|---|---|
/notes (or Ctrl+N) | A scratchpad |
/ideas | Ideas, captured as they come |
/btw | Side quests parked for later |
/questions | Research questions to answer |
/projects | Your projects; switch working directory |
/terminal [label] | A terminal in the current project |
/term [shell or command] | A terminal tab running your shell, or a command |
/spawn <preset> | Another agent CLI you have installed, as a tab. /spawn alone lists the presets |
Agents that start agents
The agent can start helpers with its spawn_agent tool, check on them and collect their work. You can do the same by hand:
/agent list
/agent spawn <persona> <task> # /agent spawn alone lists personas
/agent kill <id>
/agent auto on|off # allow or stop automatic spawningFrom a shell: 8gent agent list, 8gent agent spawn <persona> <task>, 8gent agent status. See the CLI reference.
A child never gets more freedom than its parent. It takes the stricter of its parent's permission mode and the one it asked for, and it stays linked: narrow the parent later and running children narrow too. When that happens you see it:
- tab tag
· Plan, held - footer
perm Plan (held by parent) - chat line
Held at Plan: the parent agent allows no more
In Plan, no child agents start at all.
The build pipeline
/build <task> runs a three-role pipeline on local models: a planner, an engineer and a judge, each matched to a model installed on your machine. 8gent pipeline <task> does the same from a shell.