4. Slash commands
A line beginning with / is a command, not a prompt.
Unknown slash lines are passed to the model as ordinary text.
/help prints the full usage text; completion offers the
known commands as you type.
Every command below works identically in the TUI and the plain REPL.
Session lifecycle
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/new, /clear |
start a fresh session, dropping the current transcript |
/save |
write the current session to disk (sessions also save automatically) |
/list |
list saved sessions, most recent first |
/switch <id> |
load another saved session by name or number |
/resume [prefix] |
resume a saved session; no argument picks the most recent, or shows a list |
/del <id> |
delete a saved session |
/tag <text> |
label the current session so it is recognizable in
/list |
/rename <name> |
change the name later saves use; what is already on disk keeps its old name |
/strip <id> |
drop a saved session's KV payload to reclaim disk; the transcript survives and a later resume re-prefills it |
/history |
reprint recent turns |
/quit, /exit |
leave (the session is saved) |
See Sessions.
Branching and rollback
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/checkpoint [name] |
mark a named return point in this session |
/rollback [name] |
return to a checkpoint; the discarded tail is kept as
pre-rollback |
/tree |
draw the session tree and number its fork points |
/fork [n] |
rewind to fork point n and explore a different path; no
argument shows the tree |
/clone |
freeze the current branch and continue on a copy |
Context
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/context |
report context-window usage by category |
/compact [instructions] |
compact the conversation now, rather than waiting for the automatic pass; an argument steers what this one summary keeps |
/usage |
billed token counts for the session (hosted providers, including cache hit rate) |
/rate [+|-] [note] |
rate the last turn (thumbs up by default) with an optional note; works in the TUI and the plain REPL alike |
/remember [user] <fact> |
append a dated entry to project memory (or user memory with
user) |
/memory |
open user and project memory as one buffer in the built-in editor; edits are split back to the right file on save |
/init |
have the model read the repo and generate an
AGENTS.md |
See Context.
Extensions and inspection
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/mcp |
connected MCP servers and the tools they expose |
/skills |
skills available to the model |
/templates |
your {{var}} prompt templates |
/agent |
named subagents you can delegate to, and which engine each runs on |
/hooks |
which hooks are configured and on what events |
/plugins |
loaded plugins, where each came from, what it contributes, and any warnings |
/tasks |
the model's task list |
See Extending plank.
Asides and delegation
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/btw <question> |
ask a side question mid-task; answered in a split panel, nothing written to the conversation |
/subagent <task> |
delegate a task to a general-purpose subagent; only its final report enters the transcript, and the turn continues from it |
/subagent:<name> <task> |
the same, using a named definition. The :<name>
shows green while you type if it exists and red if it does not |
/btw genuinely suspends the running generation, answers,
and resumes byte-for-byte with no re-prefill
(safety.btwSuspend, on by default). With suspend off, the
question is queued and answered at the next generation boundary
instead.
Configuration and runtime
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/config |
open the interactive settings form |
/config <section>.<key> <value> |
set one setting, e.g.
/config ui.showThinking false |
/power <1..100> |
cap GPU power draw for this run; shown as (local ⚡60%)
in the status bar |
/notify <mode> |
change notification mode for this session |
/version |
the running version |
/help |
full command and flag reference |
/config changes write to
./.plank/settings.json and apply immediately. In the TUI, a
bare /config opens the form and
/config <key> <value> sets and persists the
value directly, the same as on the plain REPL. See Configuration.
Output and diagnostics
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/export [md|html] [path] |
write the transcript to a shareable file (markdown by default, auto-named; HTML is standalone) |
/kvcache |
browse the KV cache as a tree: what each snapshot is, what it was built on, its size, how often it has been used, and when it expires |
/kvcache gc|pin|unpin|rm |
sweep expired entries now, or pin, unpin or delete one by fingerprint prefix |
/insights [fast|fresh] |
a usage report computed from every saved session, written to
~/.plank/usage-data/report.html (fast skips
the model-written prose, fresh forces it to be written
again) |
/repro [note] |
dump the exact engine input and runtime knobs to
~/.plank/repro/ for a bug report |
/repro is the one to reach for when you want to report a
problem: it captures the rendered prompt the engine would see plus the
model, backend, context size, sampling settings and think mode, in a
single self-contained file. It never touches the live session.
/insights computes every number in code
and uses the model only for prose it cannot replace — a failed or
skipped model call costs the report its narrative, never its
statistics.
The report is differential. Per-session statistics
have always been cached and recomputed only for sessions that changed;
the written sections now work the same way. plank remembers the last
report in ~/.plank/usage-data/last-report.json and reuses
its prose until ten sessions — or a tenth of your history, whichever is
smaller — are new or have been written to since. A section the previous
run failed to produce is not reused, so it gets written on the next run
rather than staying missing. /insights fresh writes
everything again regardless, for when the last answer was wrong rather
than stale.
When there is a previous report to compare against, the new one opens with a Since strip: sessions new or updated, prompts, lines, files, commits, and any tool or friction category that was not there last time. It is subtraction of two deterministic aggregates, so it costs nothing and cannot be wrong the way a written summary could.
Suggestions are made to be used, not read: every snippet, prompt and
instruction in the report has a Copy button, and the
Worth putting in AGENTS.md list arrives as a checklist
— untick what you disagree with, press Copy all
checked, and paste the rest into plank. The report stays a
single self-contained local file: the clipboard handler is inlined next
to the stylesheet, with a fallback for file://, where the
browser clipboard API is unavailable.
Among the written sections is Features to try: two or three of plank's own extension points — a skill, a template, a subagent, a hook, an MCP server — chosen from what your sessions actually show, each with a ready-to-run snippet that sets it up. The report knows what you already have installed (it reads the live skill, template, subagent, hook and MCP rosters), so it recommends what is missing rather than what is already there.
Editing a file
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/open [path] |
edit an existing file in the built-in editor; with no path, reopens the last file a tool call edited this session |
/open hands the terminal to the same editor
Ctrl-G uses, with the file loaded: Ctrl-S
saves, Esc discards. It is the fast way to fix up an edit
the model just made — bare /open needs no path at all — or
to look at a file without spending a turn on it.
It edits, and only edits. A path that does not exist is refused
rather than created, so a typo cannot leave an empty file behind, and so
are directories, binary files, and anything over 32 MB. An untouched
Ctrl-S writes nothing. Saving follows a symlink to the file
it points at instead of replacing the link. TUI only; in the plain REPL
the command is not available.
Remote control
| Command | Status |
|---|---|
/remote |
recognized as a command |
/grant [session] |
approves a remote client's control request |
Both are part of the remote-control surface described in Remote and hosted engines.
/grant matters only when the bridge was started with
/rc ask, which withholds control from attaching clients
until you approve each request; plain /rc grants it up
front and leaves /grant with nothing to answer.
Not in /help
Five arcade commands are deliberately absent from /help
and from the completion popup. They are covered in The arcade, and they can be removed entirely
with ui.easterEggs: false.
Skills and templates as commands
Any installed skill or template also becomes a slash command:
/<name> [args]. Built-in commands always win over a
template or skill with the same name. /skills and
/templates list what is available.
Next: Tools →