Navigation and shortcuts
The sidebar
(top right of the window) Cockpit | Apps | Lumen ← mode switch
<Organization name> ← organization menu
Search ⌘K
Pinned (only when you pinned something)
Today Overview · Decisions · Activity · Tickets
Build Workflows · Agents · Coding
Run Runners · Connections
Organization Organization
Chats app chats you added
Assistant new chat, new coding session, history
<account> account menu
| Section | Item | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Today | Overview | What is running and what needs you |
| Decisions | Things waiting for your answer | |
| Activity | Agents and sessions at work | |
| Tickets | What the organization is working on, and what it produced | |
| Build | Workflows | Build and run workflows |
| Agents | Your team of agents and how it is organised | |
| Coding | Repositories and the coding lane | |
| Runners | Where work and CI run | |
| Connections | Services this organization is connected to | |
| Organization | Organization | People, access and cost |
Some items carry a count: Decisions (waiting on you, in the attention colour), Activity (actors running), Runners (live instances) and Connections (connections that need you). The Apps button of the mode switch carries its own count: apps that failed or need a look.
Below the sections, Chats lists the app chats you added and Assistant keeps your assistant chats grouped by recency, with coding sessions showing their live status. Right-click a chat for Open, Copy Title and (if you own it) Archive Chat…. Chats with the same title fold into one row marked ×N until you click the badge.
Arrange it
Everything below is remembered per organization, on this computer.
| To | Do this |
|---|---|
| Reorder an item | Drag it onto another item in its section |
| Pin an item to the top | Right-click › Pin to Top, or the pin button in Customize Sidebar… (pinned items form a Pinned section and keep their own order) |
| Hide an item | Right-click › Hide from Sidebar. A toast offers Undo |
| Fold a section | Click its header. Folded state is remembered |
| Open the full editor | Right-click an item or a section header › Customize Sidebar…, or ⌘K › Customize Sidebar… |
| Reset | Customize Sidebar… › Reset to Default |
Customize Sidebar shows every feature with a checkbox (shown or hidden), a pin, and up and down arrows within its section. It also picks the sidebar style:
| Style | Result |
|---|---|
| Full | Labels, sections, chats and assistant history |
| Icons only | A narrow rail of icons, plus Chats and Assistant |
| Hidden | No sidebar. On macOS the toolbar leaves room for the window buttons |
The style and the width (drag the sidebar's right edge, 190 to 380 px, default 236) are global to the computer, not per organization. The list column of Decisions and Activity is resizable the same way (240 to 520 px, default 300).
New features appear in their default section the first time they exist; unknown ids in a stored arrangement are dropped.
⌘K: search everything
⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) opens one search box over everything the app already knows. Typing ranks matches by: the title equals the query, a word in the title starts with it, the title contains it, a keyword matches, then letters in order (cnct finds Connections). Tickets are the one thing searched on the platform, after a short pause in typing.
| Group | What it lists |
|---|---|
| Recent | What you opened from the palette before (shown when the box is empty) |
| Go to | Every sidebar section and Chats, with its ⌘1…⌘9 shortcut when it has one |
| Commands | New chat, new coding session, new workflow, new app, new runner group, refresh, open Apps, back to Cockpit, switch Cockpit/Lumen, sidebar actions, appearance, updates, settings, AI tools, test notification, open web, sign out |
| Decisions, Activity | Pending decisions (marked Needs you when you can answer) and sessions |
| Assistant chats, Coding sessions, App chats | Your chats |
| Workflows, Agents, Apps (choosing one switches to Apps mode), App people, Connections, Runner groups, Repositories, People, API tokens | The matching records, loaded in the background after sign-in |
| Tickets | Ticket search results from the platform |
| Lumen | Every Lumen page and dashboard. Choosing one switches to Lumen mode and opens it |
↑ and ↓ move, Enter opens the result where it lives, Esc or a click outside closes it.
Keyboard shortcuts
On macOS the shortcuts live in the menu bar. On Windows and Linux there is no menu bar and the app binds the same ones to Ctrl.
| Action | macOS | Windows and Linux |
|---|---|---|
| New chat. In Workflows it makes a workflow, in Apps mode an app, in Runners a runner group | ⌘N | Ctrl+N |
| New coding session | ⇧⌘N | Not bound. Use the button next to Assistant or ⌘K |
| Search everything | ⌘K | Ctrl+K |
| Find. Inside a workflow diagram it finds a step, anywhere else it opens search | ⌘F | Ctrl+F |
| Refresh everything | ⌘R | Ctrl+R |
| Collapse or expand the sidebar (full ↔ icons) | ⌘\ | Ctrl+\ |
| Hide or show the sidebar | ⌥⌘S | Not bound. Use Customize Sidebar… |
| Show or hide the coding panel | ⌘J | Ctrl+J |
| Settings (AI tools) | ⌘, | Ctrl+, |
| Open the 1st to 9th item of the sidebar, top to bottom, in your own order (Pinned first) | ⌘1 … ⌘9 | Ctrl+1 … Ctrl+9 |
| Move the selection in a list (Decisions, Activity), Mail style | ↑ ↓ | ↑ ↓ |
| Clear the selection | Esc | Esc |
| Lumen mode: go back to the previous page | ⌘[ | Ctrl+[ |
The ↑ ↓ and Esc keys do nothing while you type in a field, and ↑ ↓ are left alone inside a workflow diagram, where they move between boxes.
macOS also lists the sections under View (Overview through Organization) without shortcuts, and Help has Open Cockpit on the Web and Send Test Notification.
The tray
The app lives in the tray (menu bar on macOS) so it keeps watching when the window is closed.
| Tray item | Does |
|---|---|
| Click the icon | Shows the window |
| Open Cockpit | Shows the window |
| New Chat | Shows the window and opens a new assistant chat |
| Quit Orkestia Cockpit | Exits the app. Closing the window only hides it |
The tray tooltip reads Orkestia Cockpit — N waiting, and on macOS the menu bar shows the number next to the icon.
Notifications and the badge
| Event | Notification |
|---|---|
| A new decision addressed to you | Decision needed · |
| More than three new decisions at once | One summary: N new decisions, From |
| A chat shared with you | Shared with you |
| A coding session's plan, PR, checks or delivery changes, or a local coding session needs an answer | A notification that opens that session |
| A mention or direct message in an app chat | A notification that opens that chat |
| An AI tool asks to be allowed | A notification. The question itself is already on screen in the app |
Clicking a notification brings the window forward on the thing it names. Decisions addressed to someone else never notify.
The badge on the Dock icon (macOS) or taskbar (where the platform supports it) counts the decisions waiting on you plus chat mentions and direct messages that need you.
Send Test Notification (account menu, ⌘K, Help menu) sends one so you can check the system shows it. If nothing appears, allow Orkestia Cockpit in your system's notification settings; see Troubleshooting.
Next: About, settings and updates.
First run and onboarding
What the Cockpit app asks on a first sign-in, in order. Create the workspace, pay for the platform plan inside the window, connect GitHub or an AI provider, then enter the cockpit. What happens when billing is down and how to reopen onboarding
About, settings and updates
What Settings contains in the Cockpit app, the About panel (version, update, resource usage, cache, account), appearance, and exactly what clearing the cache removes