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Terminal Access

You can open an interactive terminal connected directly to the task's container. This lets you run commands, explore the filesystem, resume agents, and debug issues in real-time.

Web-Based Terminal​

Click the Terminal button in the task toolbar to open a terminal drawer on the task page. It connects to the running container so you can execute commands.

Use the drawer controls to open a new shell tab, minimize the panel, open a fresh terminal window for the active tab, or close all terminal tabs.

The web-based terminal supports:

  • Full shell capabilities (bash)
  • Running commands and tools installed in the container
  • Interactive prompts and text input
  • Colors and text formatting
  • Standard input/output redirection

This is the quickest way to access the container—no local setup required.

Attaching from Your Own Terminal​

If you prefer using your local terminal application, click the dropdown arrow next to the Terminal button and select Copy Attach Command. This copies a coder CLI command to your clipboard.

Paste and run this command in your local terminal to attach directly to the container. This gives you:

  • Your preferred terminal emulator and configuration
  • Better keyboard shortcut support
  • Integration with local tools and shell customizations
  • Easier copy/paste workflows

The attach command connects to the same container as the web terminal—both access the identical environment.

Note: Terminal access is only available while the container is running. If the container stops, restart it to use the terminal again.

Interactive Containers​

You can also work in a container that belongs to no task. In the dashboard's Quick Actions menu, Terminal (New Container) starts an interactive container for the selected environment and branches and opens a shell in it; VS Code (New Container) opens browser VS Code in one instead. The CLI's coder start and coder shell start the same kind of container (see Interactive Sessions). Opening one needs containers:shell in its environment, and everyone with that permission there can open it.

In Full edition, Ask CoderFlow can list these containers, report their state and local-state summary, and give you a button that reopens a container's terminal or VS Code after checking your access again. Creating a container is intentionally not available in Ask; use the Quick Actions menu or the CLI instead. Ask also cannot stop or remove containers, and never types anything into a terminal session. It can run a saved test an environment manager enabled for Ask in a container, after you confirm that run; see Running a workspace command.

Working in the Container​

The container environment has a specific structure:

  • /workspace - The main working directory where repositories are cloned. This is where you'll spend most of your time. All repository code, configurations, and edits live here.
  • /task-output - Output directory containing task metadata, logs, and state information. This is managed by the system.

When you open a terminal, it starts in the /workspace directory by default. All code changes you make here (whether through file editing or terminal commands) are reflected in the Changed Files section after syncing.

Environment Setup​

The container includes:

  • Pre-installed AI agent runtimes (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Bob Shell, Grok Build, Kimi Code, etc.)
  • Git configured for the workspace
  • Development tools (Node.js, Python, etc.)
  • SSH and other utilities for advanced workflows

Common Operations​

Run a Shell Command​

# Any bash command works as normal
ls -la
grep -r "search-term" .
npm install
python script.py

Resume an AI Agent​

The terminal dropdown menu provides quick shortcuts to resume agents:

# Resume Claude Code from the last session
claude resume

# Resume Codex from the last session
codex resume

# Start a new Claude Code session
claude exec

These commands automatically set up the necessary environment and load previous session state if available.

Apply a Patch Locally​

If you want to apply the current task's patch to a local repository on your machine, use the CLI (not in the terminal):

# From your local machine
coder apply <task-id> <filename>

This is useful if you prefer to review and integrate changes in your local development environment.

Explore the Workspace​

# See what repositories are available
ls /workspace

# View repository status
cd /workspace/<repo-name>
git status

# See recent commits
git log --oneline -10

Interact with the Agent​

When an agent is running, you can:

  • Inspect what it's doing with logs
  • Check intermediate results in /task-output
  • Modify files and re-run commands to guide the agent

All changes made in the terminal contribute to the final diff and appear in the Changed Files section.