Keyboard Shortcuts

Kimi CLI shell mode supports the following keyboard shortcuts.

Shortcuts list

Shortcut	Function
Ctrl-X	Toggle agent/shell mode
Tab	Toggle thinking mode
Ctrl-J	Insert newline
Alt-Enter	Insert newline (same as Ctrl-J)
Ctrl-V	Paste (supports images)
Ctrl-D	Exit Kimi CLI
Ctrl-C	Interrupt current operation

Mode switching

Ctrl-X: Toggle agent/shell mode

Press Ctrl-X in the input box to switch between two modes:

• Agent mode: Input is sent to AI agent for processing
• Shell mode: Input is executed as local shell command

The prompt changes based on current mode:

• Agent mode: ✨ or 💫 (thinking mode)
• Shell mode: $

Tab: Toggle thinking mode

In agent mode, when the input box is empty or no completion menu is displayed, press Tab to toggle thinking mode.

• When thinking mode is enabled, the prompt changes to 💫
• A notification is displayed when switching

TIP

Thinking mode requires model support.

Multi-line input

Ctrl-J / Alt-Enter: Insert newline

By default, pressing Enter submits the input. To enter multi-line content, use:

• Ctrl-J: Insert newline at any position
• Alt-Enter: Insert newline at any position

Useful for entering multi-line code snippets or formatted text.

Clipboard operations

Ctrl-V: Paste

Paste clipboard content into the input box. Supports:

• Text: Pasted directly
• Images: Converted to base64 embedding (requires model image input support)

When pasting images, a placeholder [image:xxx.png,WxH] is displayed. The actual image data is sent along with the message to the model.

TIP

Image pasting requires the model to support image_in capability.

Exit and interrupt

Ctrl-D: Exit

Press Ctrl-D when the input box is empty to exit Kimi CLI.

Ctrl-C: Interrupt

• In input box: Clear current input
• During agent execution: Interrupt current operation

Completion operations

In agent mode, a completion menu is automatically displayed while typing:

Trigger	Completion content
/	Slash commands
@	File paths in working directory

Completion operations:

• Arrow keys to select
• Enter to confirm selection
• Esc to close menu
• Continue typing to filter options

Status bar

The bottom status bar displays:

• Current time
• Current mode (agent/agent (think)/shell)
• Shortcut hints
• Context usage

The status bar automatically refreshes to update information.