Working with an AI agent

konoma was built for one layout: konoma on the left, an AI coding agent (Claude Code, etc.) on the right. The agent edits; you watch, review, and steer — without ever leaving the keyboard.

Follow mode — F

Press F anywhere. From now on, whenever a file changes on disk, konoma automatically shows a diff of what changed since you pressed F (hunk-level before/after, the same full-screen diff as the git suite) — any changes the file already had before you started following stay hidden, so what you see is exactly the agent’s new work. The agent saves a file → you’re looking at exactly that edit, hands off.

src/main.rs starts with an uncommitted line of your own (// TODO: handle retries) — the plain git diff shows it. After F, the agent appends a function and konoma opens the file by itself, with that new function as the only highlighted change: your earlier edit has dropped back to context. f switches to the full git diff, where both changes are highlighted. The agent then edits docs/guide.md and konoma follows again.

Details that make it comfortable:

• Follow is sticky. Reading the diff — scrolling, n/N (cycling changed files), f (below) — doesn’t turn it off. Only q (leaving the diff), entering a text-input/confirm prompt, or pressing F again stops following.
• Press f inside a follow diff to switch between the diff since follow-start (default) and the full git diff for that file — the title shows which one you’re looking at (· since follow start / · full diff).
• Untracked (new) files show as an all-added diff. Files with no diff and media files (images, PDFs, …) open as a normal preview instead, scrolled to the first change.
• Rapid multi-file edits are rate-limited to about one view-switch per second (the latest change wins), so bursts don’t thrash the screen.
• While a diff is on screen, n / N cycle through the files changed in this follow session — the title shows your position like (2/5). Files that were already dirty before you pressed F don’t clutter the loop.
• .git internals, gitignored and hidden files are never followed.
• ui.follow_view = "file" switches the default presentation from diff to a normal preview with the git gutter, scrolled to the first changed hunk.

Changed-files view — C

C flattens the tree into just the files with uncommitted changes (relative paths, live-updating, status markers). Review an agent’s work top-to-bottom:

• Enter previews, d shows the diff.
• n / N also work from the normal tree — they jump to the next/previous changed file, expanding collapsed directories as needed.
• C or h returns to the normal tree. The view exits by itself when the change set becomes empty (e.g. after a commit).

Point the agent at things — @ references

Coding agents accept @path references. konoma copies them ready-to-paste:

• Tree: y → @ copies @relative/path for the selected entry.
• Text preview: Y copies @path#L12 for the caret line, or @path#L12-34 for a v/V selection.

Paste into the conversation and the agent knows exactly which lines you mean.

Worktrees — one checkout per agent — o w

Agents work best with a checkout of their own, which is why git worktree has become the usual way to run several at once. konoma lists them: o then w.

Your own checkout has an uncommitted edit of your own. o w lists the worktrees; the agent has one to itself. d shows what that worktree added since its base branch — the commit it landed and the line it is still writing. After Enter you are inside it, and WT demo names the repository add-retry belongs to.

• d spans committed and uncommitted work. An agent usually commits as it goes, so a diff of uncommitted changes alone would go blank exactly when it got something done. konoma diffs from the merge base instead, and includes untracked files, so a new file the agent just wrote is visible too.
• The base branch is the nearest one. Among the branches in graph_base_branches and the one checked out in the main worktree, konoma picks whichever shares the most recent common ancestor — the branch the worktree actually grew out of, so unrelated work on other branches stays out of the diff.
• Enter moves this tab, Ctrl-t opens another. Switching also re-bases @ references on the worktree you are now in, so what you paste into the chat points at the right file.
• The WT chip is always there. A worktree’s directory is named after the branch, not the project, so nothing on screen would otherwise say which repository you are in. In an ordinary checkout no chip appears.
• Worktrees git will not let you enter — a bare repository, or one whose directory has been deleted — say so instead of failing quietly. A locked one can still be entered: the lock guards moving and deleting it, not reading it.

A typical loop

1. F — follow on. Ask the agent for a change.
2. Watch the diffs land as the agent works; n/N to flip between files.
3. Spot something off? Y the exact lines, paste the @path#L12-34 reference into the chat with your comment.
4. Happy? o → stage → c commit, all inside konoma.