Send a keystroke to the shell

Agents: claude, codex, opencode · On: phone, desktop

Keycaps for the keys a phone keyboard does not offer: Tab, Esc, ↑, ↓, ^C, ^L, ⏎ and ^D. They go to the tab's shell pane.

Why you would use it

A soft keyboard has no Escape and no Ctrl. A command is running and you want to stop it. A prompt is waiting for a key. The last command needs recalling with the up arrow. None of these is a line of text you can type and send.

How to use it

Switch to Shell. The two-row keypad (#tray-keys) stays visible in the bottom band while Shell mode is selected. Its keycaps read Tab, Esc, ↑, ↓, ^C, ^L, ⏎ and ^D.
Tap a key to send it to the shell pane. A successful send shows a toast.

What you see

The keypad is hidden in Agent mode and always visible in Shell mode. On a wide screen, it follows the focused pane's mode.
The six-key row that used to sit directly below shell output is removed; the two-row keypad is the one set of shell key buttons.
A key from the tray toasts sent <key> to pane — for example sent C-c to pane after tmux accepts it. A rejected key shows an error toast beginning shell unavailable:.
The keys are drawn as raised keycaps. ^C, ^L and ^D send tmux's C-c, C-l and C-d; Tab, Esc, ↑, ↓ and ⏎ send Tab, Escape, Up, Down and Enter. The tmux name is each key's accessible name, so a screen reader says C-c, and it is the name the toast uses.
The jump-to-latest pill is hidden while the keypad is visible.

Options and settings

Option	Default	What it changes
`VCODE_SHELL_SESSION`	`v-code-shell` (`-prod` in the installed unit)	The tmux session the keys reach

Limits and known gaps

Each button goes to the shell pane, never to the agent. There is no way to send a raw keystroke to a running agent turn.
The keypad's key list is fixed. There is no way to add a key.
With no tmux the send fails and the toast says so.