---
title: "Quick prompt"
description: "space opens quick prompt mode: send into a session's pane, spawn into a group on the model you pick, paste an image, retarget mid-sentence."
canonical: "https://agent-manager.dev/docs/prompt/"
last-updated: "2026-10-25"
section: "Documentation"
source: "agent-manager"
---

# Quick prompt

`space` opens quick prompt mode. It takes over the footer, with the target and the prompt on a band across the whole width and the mode's keys on the row under it. The target follows the cursor while the bar is open, and `↑↓` still navigate from a one-row prompt.

![Animated demo: five prompts send five fresh agents to work from quick prompt mode without the cursor leaving the tree, the first on Opus at high effort picked with ctrl+l and ctrl+x, each row named by the prompt it was given, then a session's diff opens in review.](/assets/demo.gif)

_Fig. 2space · quick prompt_

## On a session row

An agent asks which database to use. Press `space` on its row, type the answer, and press `enter`. The text lands in its pane as a user message, and you stay on the list. The bar clears and stays open for the next answer. Settings can make it close instead.

## On a group row

`enter` spawns a new agent in that group with the prompt embedded, using the group's default path. The spawn tool starts on the tool of the last session you created in this run, or the Settings default before that. `tab` steps it forward and `shift+tab` steps it back one. The target row shows on its right what the new agent launches with: the tool, its model, effort and profile, and the worktree. A click on one does what its key does.

`ctrl+t` toggles whether the new agent gets its own git worktree (see [worktree sessions](/docs/sessions/#worktrees)). The target row reads `⎇ on` or `⎇ off`, or `⎇ no repo` when the target directory cannot hold one. Answering an existing session ignores the toggle. The agent starts on the prompt immediately.

## Several agents from one group

Put the cursor on the group and press `space`. Press `ctrl+t` so the row reads `⎇ on`. Type the first task and press `enter`. The bar clears and stays open. Type the next task and press `enter`. Each enter starts another agent, on its own worktree. `tab` changes the CLI for the next one, and `ctrl+l` picks its model.

You can also tell an agent that is already running "spawn an agent for this". It uses the same spawn. How far agents go on their own is the [coordination](/docs/mcp/#coordination) setting.

When the group's path is a folder of repos and not a repo itself, the row reads `⎇ no repo`. Those agents share that folder, and [review](/docs/review/#which-repo) still finds the repos under it.

## Model, effort and profile

`ctrl+l` swaps the bar for a sheet listing the models the tool reports. Typing filters, `enter` picks and `esc` hands the prompt back. `ctrl+x` steps the reasoning effort through the levels that model takes, and `ctrl+y` steps the profile of a tool that has profiles, from the bar or the sheet. Each CLI keeps your last picks, here and in the `n` form alike, and the next spawn on that CLI starts there. On a group row the footer names each of the three keys when the tool offers it:

`footer`

```
↵ send  ↑↓ target or caret  tab tool  shift+tab previous tool  ctrl+l model  ctrl+x effort  ctrl+y profile  ctrl+t worktree  esc close
```

The lists come from each CLI at runtime, so a new model shows up the day the CLI ships it. [Sessions](/docs/sessions/#model) has what each CLI reports.

## Saved prompts

Instructions you give every agent live as saved prompts, kept in Settings (see [Configuration](/docs/config/#saved-prompts)). In the bar, `ctrl+o` opens the list and drops the pick in as a chip that becomes its text when you send. On a session that text goes to the agent, and on a group it starts the new one. In the `n` form, `←→` on the saved prompts row picks one, and `ctrl+o` or `enter` opens the list. Its text goes in front of the task. In a focused session, `F4` pastes one into the agent's prompt without sending. `F4` moves with the other session keys.

```bash
agent-manager prompts add reviewer "Review the parser changes"
agent-manager spawn --saved reviewer --prompt "Start with the tests"
agent-manager send <session-id> --saved reviewer
```

`create_session` and `send_session` take the same name in `saved`. A name that does not exist is refused.

## Pasting text

Text goes into a pane through tmux's `paste-buffer` with `-r`, so every line break reaches the pane as a linefeed rather than a carriage return. That covers a paste into a focused session, a saved prompt dropped in with `F4`, and the text of a quick prompt or a send. An agent that reads a carriage return as Enter no longer submits part of a multi-line paste into a working session and queues the rest. This is tmux's own paste handling, not a per-CLI rule.

## Pasting an image

`ctrl+v` pastes an image from the system clipboard as an `[Image #1]` chip at the caret. The image is written under `agent-manager-pastes` in your temp directory, and on send each chip is swapped back for its path, so the paths reach the agent in the order and the places you pasted them.

`backspace` next to a chip removes the whole chip, and an edit that swallows one releases its image. A clipboard holding text pastes as text.

> **Housekeeping** Pasted images older than seven days are cleared at startup and once a day while the manager runs, so an agent can still open one from an earlier session while temp stays tidy.

## Keys

| Key | Action |
| --- | --- |
| enter | Send into the pane, or spawn in the group. |
| ↑↓ | Retarget while the bar stays open, so three answers are three sentences. In a taller prompt they move the caret between rows. |
| tab | Step the tool a spawn will use forward (`alt+m` also works). |
| shift+tab | Step the tool a spawn will use back one. |
| ctrl+l | Pick the spawn's model from the ones the tool lists. |
| ctrl+x | Step the spawn's reasoning effort through the model's levels. |
| ctrl+y | Step the spawn's profile, for a tool that has them. |
| ctrl+t | Toggle worktree spawn for a new agent on a group row (`alt+w` also works). |
| ctrl+o | Pick a saved prompt, dropped in as a chip that becomes its text on send. |
| ctrl+v | Paste a clipboard image as a chip. |
| backspace | Next to a chip, removes the whole chip. `delete` removes the chip after the caret. |
| ←→ | Step over a chip as one token. |
| esc | Close the bar. |

A `/slash` command reaches the agent as a slash command; the self-naming directive follows as its own message rather than mangling it. The new-session form's optional prompt field launches an agent the same way, and it takes `ctrl+v` and its chips too, since a first task is often the screenshot that explains it. How the prompt reaches the agent depends on the CLI. Most take it as a launch argument, and a CLI that accepts none has it typed into its composer as soon as that composer is ready.