Keymap cheatsheet

Every key the cockpit handles, in one place. The in-app ? overlay is the canonical source — this page mirrors it for offline reference.

Global (works everywhere)

Key	Effect
`Tab`	Next screen
`Shift+Tab`	Previous screen
`1` – `9`	Jump to S1 – S9
`0`	Jump to S10 (Pins)
`Alt+1` – `Alt+4`	Jump to S11 – S14 (Manifest, Watchlist, FeedTimeline, Pubsub)
`Ctrl+N`	Open node picker (also `:nodes`)
`[` / `]`	Previous / next tab on the bottom log pane (Errors / Warn / Info / Debug / Bee HTTP / bee::http / Cockpit). Persisted across launches.
`+` / `-`	Grow / shrink the bottom log pane height by one line. Clamped to 4..24. Persisted across launches.
`Shift+↑` / `Shift+↓`	Scroll the active log tab back / forward by one line. Pauses auto-tail; the title shows a `paused N ↑` indicator.
`Shift+PgUp` / `Shift+PgDn`	Same, ten lines at a time.
`Shift+End`	Resume auto-tail (snap back to the latest entries).
`?`	Toggle help overlay
`:`	Open command bar
`qq`	Quit — double-tap within ~1.5 s. First `q` shows a footer hint; second `q` confirms. `:q` also works for an unguarded quit.
`Ctrl+C` / `Ctrl+D`	Quit immediately. Escape hatch if the cockpit ever stops responding to `qq`.
`Esc`	Close help / drill / command bar / cancel current input. Also cancels a pending `q` (so you can back out without committing).

Screen-specific keys

S1 / S3 / S5 / S7 / S8 are read-only — they have no screen-specific keys.

S2 — Stamps + bucket drill

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move row selection
`↵`	Drill into selected batch (bucket histogram + worst-N)
`Esc`	Close drill

S4 — Lottery + rchash

Key	Effect
`r`	Fire / re-fire rchash benchmark

S6 — Peers + bin saturation + drill

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor in peer table
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	Page through peers
`Home`	Jump to first peer
`↵`	Drill into selected peer (4 endpoints in parallel)
`Esc`	Close drill

S9 — Tags / uploads

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Scroll one row
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	Scroll ten rows
`Home`	Back to top

S11 — Pins

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through the pinned-reference list
`↵`	Drill into selected pin (pin detail)
`Esc`	Close drill

S12 — Manifests

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through the Mantaray tree
`↵`	Toggle expand / load the cursored fork (lazy fetch)

The cursored row's reference (target hex, or fork self-address) is rendered on a selected: detail line above the footer for terminal-native click-drag copy — there's no explicit copy key.

S13 — Watchlist

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through `:watch-ref` daemons

S14 — Feed Timeline

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through the feed update history
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	Page ten entries

S15 — Pubsub watch

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through the merged PSS / GSOC timeline
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	Page ten entries
`c`	Clear the timeline (subscriptions stay open)

The command bar

: opens it. Once open:

Key	Effect
`↵`	Run the typed command
`Esc`	Close without running
`Backspace`	Delete left
any printable	Append to command buffer

See The :command bar for what each command does.

Conventions

The cockpit prefers vim-style keys (j/k, :command, Esc-to-close) but every nav key has an arrow-key + named-key alias. You don't have to know vim.
No Ctrl+ chords for normal navigation. The cockpit reserves Ctrl-keys for terminal escape sequences (Ctrl+C exits via SIGINT, etc.). All screen actions are single keystrokes.
Esc is universal close. Whatever's most-recently opened — drill / help / command bar — is what Esc closes. The hierarchy is: command bar > help overlay > drill > nothing.

A bee-tui session is something operators leave running in the background while doing other work. A single q was found to be too easy to misclick — especially when navigating in from another shell. The double-tap guard means a stray keystroke costs you a footer hint, not a session.

If you really want unguarded quit, use :q from the command bar. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+D are also unguarded — they remain the canonical "I want out now" escape hatches and bypass the double-tap entirely.

Discovering keys

Open ? on any screen. The overlay shows the global keymap plus the keys for the current screen. So pressing ? on S6 lists peer-drill keys; pressing ? on S9 lists scroll keys. No memorisation needed.

The node picker overlay

Ctrl+N (or :nodes) opens a centred overlay listing every [[nodes]] entry from config.toml. The cursor lands on the currently active node:

Key	Effect
`↑↓` / `j k`	Move cursor through configured nodes
`↵`	Switch to the cursored node (rebuilds API client + watch hub; no-op if cursor is already on the active node)
`Esc` / `Ctrl+N`	Close without switching

The active node is marked ● and the default = true entry is marked ★. After switching, the metadata line at the top of the cockpit updates to show the new profile and endpoint; any :watch-ref daemons and pubsub subscriptions that were running against the previous node are cancelled (they don't follow the context — re-issue the verbs against the new node if you want them there too).

The help overlay

? opens a centred overlay with two pages:

Key	Effect
`?`	Toggle the overlay
`Tab` / `Shift+Tab`	Switch between Keys and Verbs pages
`Esc` / `?` / `q`	Close

The Keys page mirrors this cheatsheet (global keys + the screen-specific block for whichever screen is active). The Verbs page lists every :verb grouped by category (navigate, inspect, stamps & economics, uploads, durability, pubsub, mining, diagnostics, cockpit) so the entire surface is discoverable without leaving the cockpit.

What's not bound

The cockpit deliberately leaves these unbound:

Up/down arrow for screen jump — Tab (or the digit keys) is the screen-jump path. Arrow keys are reserved for in-screen navigation.
/ for search — there's no global text search yet. Most screens are too short to need one, and where they aren't (S6 peers, S9 tags), you can scroll with j/k/PgDn/Home.

bee-tui — operator handbook