Terminals on mobile

The mobile app shows the same terminals that exist on the host — you are looking at the host’s PTY through your phone, not a separate shell on the device.

Opening

From a session, tap the Terminal tab in the bottom tab bar. The terminal opens as a full-height sheet over the session view. Swipe down or tap the close affordance to dismiss.

Tabs

Multiple tabs work the same as on desktop and the portal. Tap the + to create a new terminal pinned to the current session, or pick one from the Pin existing list to reuse a terminal opened elsewhere.

Typing on a phone

A purpose-built keyboard bar sits above your system keyboard and adds the keys phones don’t have:

• Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Alt, arrows.
• A Ctrl modifier that latches for one keypress so you can send Ctrl+C, Ctrl+D, etc.

For long input, the system keyboard handles regular characters. For paste, use the system paste action.

Sharing control with desktop

Mobile follows the same single-owner model as the desktop and portal — see Shared control. When you open the terminal on mobile, you can request control with Take Over if another window currently owns it. Other windows fall to viewer mode.

Quirks worth knowing

• Tablets in landscape can show the terminal alongside the transcript; phones always show one panel at a time.
• Voice input is not wired into the terminal — it’s session-message-only. Speak to the agent in chat; type in the terminal.
• If your phone goes to sleep or the app is backgrounded, the terminal keeps running on the host. When you come back, output is replayed from the host’s buffer.

Related topics

• Mobile App overview
• Shared control across windows