Chat Sessions

Starting a Chat Session

Every project tab can be a chat session— a Claude-Desktop-style chat UI over the claudeCLI you already use. Open a project and choose chat instead of terminal, or make chat your default for every new project in Settings. There's no separate install and no API key: chat sessions run on the same Claude subscription as everything else in Orcha.

The Composer

The composer at the bottom of a chat session packs in everything a turn needs:

• Model picker — Opus 5, Sonnet 5, Haiku 4.5, Fable 5, and “latest”-style aliases the CLI resolves. Switch any time; the thread continues.
• Slash-command menu — type / for the full list of Claude Code commands, filtered as you type.
• Attachments — paste or drop an image straight into the composer. The model actually sees it, not just a filename.
• Prompt history — press ↑ in an empty composer to cycle back through what you last sent in this tab.
• Drafts — whatever you've typed but haven't sent is saved per tab. Switch away and back and it's still there.

Permission Modes

A toggle in the composer controls what Claude can do without asking first, per chat session:

• Ask first — every edit, write, and command needs your approval before it runs.
• Accept edits — file edits and writes run automatically; anything riskier still asks.
• Full access — Claude acts without stopping to ask. Use it for sessions you're watching closely.

Set an app-wide default in Settings, and override it per session from the composer whenever a task calls for something stricter or looser.

During a Turn

Replies stream in as Claude writes them, with a collapsible thinking section above the answer when Claude reasons before responding. Tool calls render as readable cards — Edit and Write show diffs, Bash shows the command and its output, Read shows the file — with code blocks syntax-highlighted, not dumped as raw JSON.

Keep typing while Claude works: new messages join a queueas pending chips, editable until they dispatch, one per turn. Changed your mind mid-turn? Interrupt and redirect without waiting for the current step to finish. A notification lands when the turn completes, so you don't have to watch the tab.

Threads & History

Each chat tab keeps its own thread history. The history popover lists past threads in that tab with auto-generated titles, so you can find “the retry backoff fix” without remembering when you worked on it. Click New chatto start fresh without losing the old thread — it's still in the popover, and it's the same underlying session history Claude Code itself would resume.

Chat vs. Terminal Tabs

Chat and terminal tabs are two views onto the exact same thing: your claude CLI, running in that project. A session started in a chat tab is resumable from a terminal and vice versa — nothing about the underlying session changes based on which surface you're looking at it through. Pick whichever fits the moment; see Terminal for the raw-CLI surface.

The Orchestrator Sees Chats Too

The orchestrator— the app-wide chat on Home — can see and steer chat sessions exactly like it does terminal sessions. Ask “what's running?” and a working chat session shows up alongside your terminals; dispatch or steer either one from the same conversation.