# Quick start — Liu Terminal

> Quick start guide for Liu Terminal. Get up and running with tabs, splits, sessions, and AI agents in minutes.

URL: https://liu.software/docs/quickstart/  
Language: en  
Updated: 2026-10-17

From a fresh build to your first resumed AI session in under five minutes. This page walks the golden path; deeper material lives in the Guides section.

## 1 - First launch

Launch ./build/Liu. The first window opens with a local PTY in your home directory. If the inherited cwd is / (common when launched from Finder or Dock), Liu chdir($HOME) in the child before exec so new tabs land somewhere useful.

Press ⌘, for settings. Theme and font are the two things worth setting before anything else.

## 2 - Unlock the vault

Hosts, keys and snippets live in an encrypted vault (SQLite + AES-256-GCM, key derived via PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256). The first time you open Smart Vault (⌘ ⇧ V) Liu will ask for a passphrase - this is yours alone, there is no recovery flow. Sensitive memory is wiped with crypto\_secure\_zero on unlock/lock.

Once unlocked the vault stays open for the session. Lock it manually from the command palette (⌘ K → Vault: Lock Now) or let vault\_auto\_lock\_minutes in config.json handle idle timeout.

## 3 - Open Agent History

Press ⌘ K and choose Agent History. Liu walks every installed AI CLI's on-disk session store, normalises the entries into a unified list and shows them in one picker. Type to fuzzy-match by snippet, tool, or working directory.

Hit ↵ on an entry to resume it natively in a new tab. Or press ⌘ ↵ instead to open the transcript view - scroll user/assistant turns without launching the agent.

Open the picker from inside a project and it auto-filters to that directory. Open it from $HOME and it shows everything on disk.

**Supported agent workflow**

Liu currently recognizes Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot CLI, Cursor Agent, Amp, OpenCode, Crush, Factory Droid, Antigravity, Kimi, Qwen Code, Grok and Command Code. The standalone Cline CLI and the Cline, Roo Code and Kilo Code editor extensions are supported too.

[See the full integration matrix →](https://liu.software/docs/agent-history.md)

## 4 - Generate a theme with AI

⌘ K → Create Theme. Describe the look you want, pick the agent, and Liu hands the prompt to a local CLI. The returned JSON is validated, applied live and saved to ~/.config/Liu/themes/.

## 5 - Split, search, switch

- ⌘ D / ⌘ ⇧ D - split the current pane horizontally or vertically.
- ⌘ F - search inside scrollback.
- ⌘ K - fuzzy palette over commands, hosts, snippets, themes and agent sessions.
- ⌃ \` - default Quake-mode global hotkey when Quake mode is enabled.

## 6 - Where to go next

- [Agent History](https://liu.software/docs/agent-history.md) - Full tool table and how scanning works.
- [Themes](https://liu.software/docs/themes.md) - The AI Create Theme flow + writing your own JSON.
- [Keybindings](https://liu.software/docs/keys.md) - Full shortcut reference.

[Next Themes →](https://liu.software/docs/themes.md)