Using Nav

You can talk to Nav from four places. They all use the same agents, the same configuration and the same permission rules.

The command line page lists every command and flag.

Pick an agent

A conversation runs as one primary agent. You can switch between turns.

• build is the default. It implements, verifies and reports.
• plan researches and writes Markdown plans. It does not change code.

In the terminal client, press tab on an empty message to switch between them. Everywhere, /agent <id> does the same, and /new [agent] starts a fresh conversation on a given agent. Nav can also hand work to the crew (vigie, lux, mousse and so on) as subagents. See Agents.

Slash commands

Type / in any chat. A palette lists the commands. These work in every client:

Type //text to send the literal text /text as a message.

How /model, /variant, /agent and /new behave is explained in Editor context and session overrides.

Context and compaction

WithNav estimates the size of the next request and shows how full the model’s window is. When a conversation grows too long, /compact summarises the older part. Compaction also runs automatically before a request that would not fit. By default the Metacognition model writes the summary (compaction.writer; see Configuration).

The terminal client: nav tui

nav tui starts a private server and opens a chat. To use a server that is already running, pass --url; see the command line.

• Tabs. Up to nine conversations, alt+1 to alt+9. ctrl+n opens a new one, alt+w closes the tab and keeps the conversation, alt+b hides the tab bar.
• Header. Workspace, git branch, agent and model.
• Right column. Context breakdown, skills and git changes. alt+r shows or hides it.
• Command palette. ctrl+p or /. It also holds /config (edit settings), /sessions, /skills, /theme and /quit.
• Models. f2 opens the model picker, with variants. ctrl+f marks a favourite.
• Sessions. ctrl+o lists past conversations to resume.
• Subagents. alt+s opens a subagent’s read-only transcript. alt+c continues one that ran out of steps.
• Bypass. alt+p turns bypass on or off.
• Themes. Eight: Ayu, Nord, Tide and Moss, each dark and light. Tide Dark is the default. Choose one with /theme; it is saved as tui.theme.
• Help. f1 shows every shortcut. ctrl+q quits, esc or ctrl+c stops a running turn.

Permission questions appear inline: y allows once, n denies (you can add a message), and a appears when a reusable approval is possible.

The browser client: nav web

nav web starts WithNav on a private address on your computer, prints a link and opens it. The link carries a secret that changes on every run and only works on this machine. Press ctrl+c to stop.

The page lets you chat in any workspace you pass with --workspace (repeat the flag for several; the current directory is the default) and in folders you used before. Each shows its git branch and whether it has changes. The gear in the top bar opens Settings, and the command palette opens the InstinctFlow Studio.

Settings screens

The model of each layer and agent, permissions, subagent limits, watchdogs and the theme can be changed without editing JSON:

• In the browser: the gear in the top bar.
• In the terminal: /config. Changes are written to config.json with ctrl+s.
• In VS Code: the WithNav: Open Settings command, or the gear in the Nav chat.

All three write the same config.json. Gateways are read-only there, and API keys are never shown. Layer models apply after you restart WithNav. The rest applies to new sessions.