Canvas
Canvas settings
The Canvas settings change how the board looks, what a new terminal runs, how much the Canvas keeps in memory and where terminals may run. They apply to every workspace.
Where it is
Settings › Integrations › Canvas. The first switch there, Show the canvas, shows or hides the whole Canvas. Shortcuts have their own page: Canvas shortcuts.
Look and feel
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Background | Grid, Plain or Transparent. | Grid |
| Selection style | How a selected node is marked: Solid, Dashed, Corners, Corner dots or Elevation. | Dashed |
| Node material | Opaque or Glass node backgrounds. | Opaque |
| Cord style | How cords are drawn: Curve, Rope or Circuit. | Curve |
| Zoom step | How far one wheel notch or one ⌘=Ctrl+= zooms, from 5% to 50%. | 10% |
| Zoom with the wheel while holding | Option / Alt, Control, or Command (conflicts with the workspace swipe). | Option / Alt |
| Pan by dragging with the right button | Right-drag moves the board instead of opening the menu. | Off |
| Focus terminals, notes and portals on hover | Pointing at a node focuses it without a click. | Off |
| Spell check in notes, text and the composer | Underlines misspelled words. | Off |
New item defaults
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| New terminal (⌘T) runs | What ⌘TCtrl+T and T start: Terminal, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Ollama or one of your agent presets. | Terminal |
| Terminal size, Note size, Text size, Portal size | Width × height for new nodes, for example 640x400, snapped to the 20 pt grid. Empty means automatic. Right-click a node and choose Use Size as Default to copy its size here. |
Automatic |
| Note font | The font of new notes. | The app’s font |
| New notes open in | Formatted or Raw Markdown. | Formatted |
Terminals
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | The terminal colors. | Follow the app |
| Font | The terminal font. | The app’s terminal font |
| Padding (horizontal, vertical) | Space between the text and the node’s edge. | None |
| Memory limit per terminal (MB) | A program that uses more memory than this is stopped; the shell stays. Empty or zero turns it off. | Off |
| Option key sends Meta (instead of typing characters) | For terminal programs that use Meta shortcuts on macOS. | Off |
| Start another shell when the saved one is missing | Falls back to another shell instead of failing. | On |
| Notify when an agent needs attention | A system notification when an agent waits for you. | On |
| Attention badge on terminals that are not the Maestro | Shows the badge on every terminal, not only the Maestro. | On |
| Keep the computer awake | While agents are working, Always or Never. | While agents are working |
Agent presets
A preset brings your own agent: any command line, with its arguments and environment. It shows up in the Add menu and can be the default for ⌘TCtrl+T.
- Fill in Name and Command. Both are required.
- Add Arguments, Environment (one KEY=value per line) and Folder (empty = the workspace’s) if you need them.
- Pick an Icon and a Color.
- Tick Maestro (can recruit and manage other agents) to make terminals from this preset start as the Maestro, and Start in chat mode to open them in their chat face.
- Click Add preset.
Edit and Remove change or delete a preset later. Editing a preset changes only terminals made afterwards. If you remove the preset that new terminals run, they go back to Terminal.
Images
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show images at any zoom | Zoomed out, images stay visible as a lighter copy instead of a colored plate. | On |
| Quality when zoomed out | Light, Balanced or Sharp. Sharper keeps more images in memory. | Balanced |
| Download images from the web | Image links are saved into the workspace, up to 25 MB each. | On |
| Thumbnails | Clear thumbnails frees their disk space; they are made again when needed. |
Performance
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Rendering | Faithful (like up close) draws every node as it looks up close at any zoom; Light (summaries when zoomed out) shows summaries when zoomed out. | Faithful |
| Terminals kept open | Terminals off screen beyond this number are closed in the view; they keep running. Up to 64. | 12 |
| Live portals | Portals beyond this number show their last picture until you get close. Up to 16. | 4 |
| Draw the canvas without the graphics card | Slower; try it if the canvas flickers or stays blank. | Off |
Environments
Where terminals may run. Each floor picks its own environment in the floor settings (see Orchestrating agents on the Canvas); a kind that is off here runs on this computer instead.
| Option | Default |
|---|---|
| This computer | Always on |
| This computer, persistent (tmux) | On |
| SSH | On |
| Docker | On |
| Docker Sandbox | On |
| Custom runtimes | On |
| WSL | On on Windows, off elsewhere |
- Custom runtimes: Add runtime with a Name and an Executable, plus the Arguments to run a command (Test, setup), the Arguments for the terminal, the Shell inside and How it reaches this computer.
- Persistent sessions lists the terminal sessions kept in tmux here and on SSH, Docker and runtime machines. End stops a session’s programs; the terminal stays on the canvas and starts fresh. Refresh reloads the list.
- Skills: Canvas terminals always load the OmniGet canvas skill from the app’s plugin folder. Set a folder per agent to also install it there, then click Save or Save and install now.
Portal sessions
A session is a named browser profile that portals can share, for example one for work. Log in once inside a portal that uses it; renaming the session keeps the login. Agents see only the session names, never cookies or passwords.
- Click New session…, type a Session name, pick a Color and click Create.
- In a portal, choose the session under Session: the logins this portal uses. Own storage keeps the portal’s logins to itself.
- Rename or Delete a session from the list. Deleting a session deletes its logins; the list shows which portals use it.
Common problems
The canvas flickers or stays blank
Turn on Draw the canvas without the graphics card.
The Canvas is slow with many terminals or portals
Lower Terminals kept open and Live portals, or set Rendering to Light (summaries when zoomed out). Terminals closed in the view keep running.
A floor that should run over SSH or in Docker runs on this computer
That environment kind is off. Turn it on under Environments.