Use the browser terminal

The browser terminal runs each tab as a tmux session on your box. Close the browser and every tab keeps running. Paste screenshots, drop files, click file paths and open the pages your agent asks for, all from one window.

Work with tabs

• Pick + next to the tabs to open a new one with the box's agent. Outside the terminal, press T.
• Double-click a tab to rename it. Press F2 when the tab has focus.
• Drag a tab to reorder it, or press Alt+Shift+← and Alt+Shift+→.
• Pick the × on a tab to close it. Closing ends the tmux session and stops every program in it, agents included.
• Pick Full screen at the right end of the tab bar.

The tab bar shows how many tabs you have, for example 3 of 10 tabs. A box holds up to 10. Close one to open another.

When the connection drops, the terminal shows "Reconnecting… tmux keeps the session" and comes back by itself. If the shell in a tab exits, pick Start a new shell in this tab.

Keyboard shortcuts

The terminal answers like a local one. On a Mac, ⌘ is the terminal's key and never reaches the box, so Ctrl+C stays an interrupt and Option works as Meta.

On Windows and Linux, plain Ctrl+V pastes an image. Anything else goes to the shell as ^V.

Right-click the terminal for a menu with copy, paste, select all, clear and find. Press ? anywhere in the dashboard for the full shortcut sheet.

Copy text out of the box

Select text and copy it as usual. Programs inside the box can fill your clipboard too. xclip and wl-copy send their text to your browser, and tmux copy mode does the same. The dashboard confirms with "The box sent text to copy." That is how a one-time code from gh auth login lands in your clipboard.

Paste screenshots into the agent

Paste an image with ⌘V or Ctrl+V. The image uploads to ~/.cache/detachbox/clipboard/ on the box, and its path is pasted into the tab. Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and OpenCode turn that path into an image attachment. Images go up to 20 MB.

Drop files into the box

Drag files from your computer onto the terminal.

• Images up to 20 MB and other files up to 50 MB.
• Files land in ~/uploads/ under their own names, and their paths are pasted into the tab.
• One upload runs at a time. Press Esc to cancel it.
• Folders are refused. Zip the folder first, or copy it with rsync over SSH.

Find in the scrollback

Press ⌘F or Ctrl+Shift+F. Type to search, step through matches with the arrow buttons, and press Esc to close.

Open links and file paths

Links starting with http open in a new browser tab. File paths in the output are links too. ⌘-click or Ctrl-click them, or tap them on a phone. A :line suffix, such as src/app.ts:42, jumps to that line.

Read files in the viewer

A file path opens in the viewer over the terminal. It shows:

• source code with line numbers and highlighting
• markdown, rendered
• images and PDFs
• CSV as a table
• long logs from the end, with Load earlier lines to read back

The viewer shows files up to 20 MB. Download takes files up to 1 GiB. The viewer also has these actions:

• Copy path copies the absolute path.
• Share link creates a link that works without sign-in for the time you pick. See Previews and files.
• Open rendered shows an HTML file as a page on the box's files address.
• Open in VS Code or Open in Cursor opens the file at that line through Remote-SSH, with your own SSH key. Phones don't show this button.

To open any file by path, press ⌘K or Ctrl+K and pick Open a file in followed by the box name. Type an absolute path, a path from your home (~/…) or one relative to the tab.

Handle pages the agent opens

When an agent runs detachbox-open, xdg-open or $BROWSER, the dashboard shows "The agent opens a page:" with the host. Pick Open.

Leave Open automatically from now on ticked, and the next pages open by themselves. Change this later under Settings → Pages the agent opens. The choice is per browser. If the browser blocks the pop-up, allow pop-ups for my.detachbox.com.

A link to the box's own localhost:<port> opens as the box's preview URL.

Pick a theme and text size

The dashboard follows System, Light or Dark, set under Settings → Appearance. Agents draw their screens for a dark terminal, so Terminal stays dark is on by default. Switch it off for a light terminal on the light theme.

Text size changes with ⌘+ and ⌘− on a Mac, or from the ⌘K command menu. On a phone, pinch with two fingers.

Watch every tab at once

Press Ctrl+` (the backtick key) to show or hide the terminals list next to any page. Alt+1 to Alt+9 jump to a terminal in the list. On a Mac, use Option. The list marks agents that need you, as Notifications explains.