The TUI tour

Keel opens on the editor login — a centered form, password only if the Yard already knows you (a stored session that still validates skips the screen; F2 enters local dev mode with no Yard at all). Everything after that is one screen: the C. The C never rearranges itself. The top strip and bottom strip are permanent, the rail is permanent, and only the center pane changes as you move between views.

The C, as it actually renders: ① breadcrumb, version, signed-in editor, mode badge · ② the current beat's contract, always visible · ③ five lens tabs, cycled with Tab · ④ what the active lens shows · ⑤ the selected node's card · ⑥ the active view · ⑦ status and key hints.

Views and lenses are different axes

The digits 1–7 change the view — what fills the big center pane. Tab cycles the lens — what the narrow rail shows. They are independent: you can write in view 2 while the rail's ledger lens keeps your unpaid promises in the corner of your eye. The rail is a glance; the numbered views hold the detail.

keel	the spine tree — ● canon, ◐ pending, ○ specified, ◌ sketched — with the frontier warning on the border
frames	the reader's chapters
codex	entity names (the world bible)
ledger	promises (✓ paid · … hanging) and facts
review	amendments and their state

1 · Map

Walk the spine. The selection lives in the rail tree; the rail's detail box shows the selected node's card, and the center pane shows a read-only preview of the prose you would be editing. Containers (arcs, movements) hold no prose — select a beat to preview its leaf.

j/k select in the rail (detail below the tree) · Enter opens the leaf to write s-0001 — read-only preview · Enter to edit The ferryman did not look up. He had been paid already. ▁▄█▄▁ tension

j / k, ↓ / ↑	move the selection through the tree
Enter	open the selected beat's first leaf in the editor

2 · Write

The editor — the pane grows a thick ✎ border so there is never any doubt you are holding the pen. Entering the view checks the leaf out (or resumes your working file); if someone else holds the lock you get a read-only view naming the holder. The full treatment is in The editor.

3 · Codex

The world bible: entity list on the left, the selected entity's prose on the right.

j / k, ↓ / ↑

select an entity

4 · Review

Amendments (changesets) and their state — open, landed, abandoned — with pending counts. The mechanics live in Amendments & blast radius.

AMENDMENTS a-1 the toll is memory open 2 pending land: keel land <id> · abandon: keel abandon <id> · reconcile: keel ci --changeset

5 · Ledger

Promises above, facts below — the story's memory. See The Ledger.

PROMISES P-01 whose memory did he lose? opens b-v1.1.1.1 ✓ paid in b-v1.3.1.1 FACTS F-0001 e-harbor-town the harbor keeps a ledger of its own revealed 1.1.1 §1

6 · Yard

A placeholder today — the hosted admin surface reaches the TUI with hosted series. The web Yard itself is live now: see The Yard.

7 · Worldline

Every leaf as a mark on a horizontal line. Chronological mode orders them as the reader meets them; temporal mode segments the axis into the calendar's eras and places each mark by its story-time year. Full story: Worldline & calendar.

[temporal] ←→ select · h/l scroll · t/c mode · Enter open ────●───────│──●───●──│────●─────│─────────│───────── Mythic │ Old │ Present │ Future │ Far Future

← / →	select a mark
h / l	scroll the line
t / c	temporal / chronological
Enter	open that leaf in the editor

The palette and the command console

^p opens the command palette: type to filter, Enter runs — every view, the mode toggle, the changelog, quit. Type : as the first character and the palette becomes the command console: any keel command runs right there, output shown in an overlay — :snapshot draft-one, :export --epub, :promise list. Nothing requires leaving the TUI.

Overlays

? or F1	the help overlay — the full key and concept reference, always available
changelog	from the palette — what changed in this version
j / k · Esc	scroll · close, in any overlay

If you only remember one key: ?. It opens the in-tool manual from anywhere. And q always leaves — guarded, never losing unsaved work.