# Sessions
A session is a long-lived shell: an agent, a build, a plain prompt. Sessions
are the unit everything else is built around.
## Sessions survive the window
Sessions run in a background service (`boringterminald`) that owns the shell
process, the terminal state, and the scrollback. Quitting the app, or the app
crashing, leaves every session running. Relaunch and everything reattaches:
output, titles, attention state, even your side-by-side layout and its zoom.
The service starts automatically the first time you open the app. Two limits
to know:
- Sessions do not survive **logout, reboot, or killing the service itself**.
- When you close a session (⌘W) while a command is still running in
the foreground, the app asks for confirmation first.
## The sidebar
Every open session lives in a vertical sidebar. Toggle it with ⌘B;
when hidden, the title-bar toggle shows a badge if any session needs you.
- ⌘T opens a new session. It inherits the working directory of the
current one when the shell reports it (see [Agents & attention](/docs/agents/)).
- ⌘1–⌘9 jump to a session by position; hold ⌘
to see the number badges.
- ⌘⇧[ / ⌘⇧] step to the previous / next session.
- ⇧⌥⌘↑ / ⇧⌥⌘↓ reorder rows.
Sessions that need attention get an orange dot in the sidebar, and the Dock
icon badge counts them.
## Pairs: the one split
Two related sessions can share the window side by side. For example, an agent
and the dev server it keeps restarting. This is the only split: exactly two
sessions, one level, side by side. A pair occupies a single sidebar row and
moves as one item.
Create a pair:
- ⌘D opens a new session beside the current one.
- Drag one sidebar row onto the **left or right half** of another.
- **Session › Pair With Previous / Next Session.**
Work with it:
- ⌥⌘← / ⌥⌘→ focus a side; ⇧⌥⌘← /
⇧⌥⌘→ move a member across the divider.
- ⇧⌘↩ zooms the focused side to full width; press again to
restore both.
- The divider is draggable, and the ratio persists.
- **Separate Sessions** (Session menu or the row's context menu) turns the
pair back into two ordinary rows; both sessions keep running.
- ⌘W closes only the focused member; the survivor becomes a
single row.
## Scrollback and search
Each session keeps 10,000 lines of scrollback. ⌘F opens search in
the focused session; ⌘G / ⇧⌘G step through matches.
Select text and ⌘C copies it; ⌘K clears to the start.