Bash Mode

Prefix your input with ! to run shell commands directly, bypassing the LLM. The prompt changes to ! to indicate bash mode. Press Backspace on an empty line to exit back to normal mode.

Synchronous Commands

! git status
! dart test
! ls -la src/

Background Jobs

Prefix with & (ampersand + space) to run commands in the background. The shell returns immediately and you can keep chatting.

! & dart compile exe bin/main.dart

# Job lifecycle events are printed as they happen:
[job 1] started: dart compile exe bin/main.dart
[job 1] exited (0)

Limits

Limit	Default
Synchronous command timeout	30 seconds (configurable)
Output line cap	50 lines (bash.max_lines in config)
Background job timeout	None -- runs until completion or manual kill

TIP

Use background jobs for long-running tasks like compilation or test suites so you can continue chatting while they run.

See also

• HostExecutor
• ShellJobManager
• ShellConfig