Use the agent’s terminal view

You can use Codex or Claude's interactive terminal inside the desktop app and switch back to the graphical conversation view. Both views use the same thread on the same cloud machine.

Open the terminal view

Open the GUI pill in the thread header, then choose CLI from Thread view. To return, open the CLI pill and choose GUI. If a view is unavailable, the menu will explain why.

The GUI reply box and terminal keep separate unsent input; switching views will not move text between them. What happens to running work and terminal input depends on the agent:

• Codex: You can open the CLI during an active turn without interrupting it. Returning to the GUI will hide the terminal and keep its unsent input for when you return.
• Claude: An idle GUI conversation can switch directly. If Claude is working or another device controls its terminal, the app will ask before interrupting the turn or moving terminal control to this computer. Returning to the GUI will discard unsent terminal input; the confirmation will also identify any saved GUI draft that will reappear.

Start a new thread in the CLI

For a new thread, choose Start in the CLI. This will keep your draft intact; Back to the GUI composer will return you to it. When you're ready, choose Open CLI. If the draft has text, attachments, or review comments that cannot be transferred, boxes.dev will warn before discarding them. It will then start the thread on the selected machine, where you can type the first prompt in the agent's terminal.

Sending a first GUI message or successfully opening a new CLI thread will make that view your default for new drafts in this project on this computer. To make the GUI the default again, send a new thread's first message from the GUI composer.

Start in the CLI opens a native agent terminal for the new thread. Select the image to enlarge it.

Use Claude commands in the terminal view

Claude's terminal view stays with the boxes.dev thread and its starting directory. Commands that replace or move that session, including /clear, /resume, /continue, /branch, /teleport, /tp, and /cd, are unavailable. Open or create the intended boxes.dev thread instead.

Use /add-dir for access to another directory. /compact, supported rewind controls, subagents, and /fork remain available.

Claude's Agent View and Remote Control are unavailable in this managed CLI. An ordinary Claude process started separately in a machine shell retains its normal behavior, but is a separate session from the managed thread.

Paste images in Claude's terminal

Paste a PNG or JPEG with Cmd+V on macOS, Ctrl+V on Linux, or Paste in the terminal's context menu. Claude's native image shortcut also works: Ctrl+V on macOS/Linux or Alt+V on Windows. boxes.dev will upload the image to the selected machine before Claude receives it. The limit is 20 MiB per image, with at most 10 images and 50 MiB per paste.

Change Claude's transcript appearance

To give Claude's graphical conversation a terminal-like appearance, open the thread action menu and choose Transcript style → CLI style. Choose Desktop style to return to the default appearance. This preference changes the display without opening an interactive terminal. In either style, older completed turns can fold their intermediate activity; expand it to inspect the steps Claude took.

To browse and open threads from a terminal on your own computer, see Install and use the CLI.