Comments

The fourth shelf on a pane's workbench, comments, is for notes to yourself: what to check when the agent finishes, a number you want to remember, what you think of its plan. The agent is never told.

Press Alt+M on the bench, or click + write a note at the top of the shelf. Write, then press Enter to post or Esc to throw it away. The note is saved with the pane, so it's still there after a restart.

Nothing about a note reaches the agent. It isn't typed into the terminal, it isn't recorded in the agent's action journal, and no button sends it. copy, which puts it on your clipboard, is the only way it leaves. It isn't secret, though: it's an ordinary file that anything running as you can read.

Technical has the keys, where notes are kept, and how long.

Notes

Writing#

The box opens below the bench, above the composer, headed A NOTE ON THIS PANE · THE AGENT IS NOT TOLD, and the rail moves to the comments shelf. The + write a note row only shows while the rail is open, on panes at least 420 px wide; on narrower ones Alt+M is the way in. Typing on the comments shelf without opening the box starts a message to the agent, as on every shelf.

The rest of the editing keys are the composer's, listed on Keys. Every other key goes into the note. An empty note closes without posting.

Where notes are kept#

Each note is a file in the pane's own folder:

~/.local/state/terminal-delight/surfaces/<session>/<pane>/comment-<time>-<n>.json

{"td":"0.4","kind":"comment","id":"comment-1758784380000-0","model":{"body":"check the bleed at 40%. it might be the chip"}}

It's the same folder an agent writes its own surfaces to, and the file is readable by anything running as you. A pane with nowhere to save, such as one in a scratch window, says THIS PANE CANNOT SAVE NOTES · NOTHING HERE WILL SURVIVE and keeps your draft if you try to post. Notes follow the same limits as every surface: 64 per pane on the bench, 512 files per pane on disk, and a session folder untouched for 30 days is removed.

Why it can't reach the agent#

• A comment's only action is copy, and copy is done by the window: it writes the clipboard and nothing else.
• Posting writes the file and draws the card. It doesn't touch the terminal or actions.jsonl.
• The comment kind isn't in the catalogue or the launch briefing, so agents aren't invited to write one, and no MCP tool returns the bench's contents.

The card#

Notes are drawn in the colour of your own input. The title is the note's first line, up to 72 characters. Under it, you · 25 Sep 2026, 07:13, and the provenance line written here, by you. A one-line note's card reads A NOTE TO YOURSELF · THE AGENT WAS NOT TOLD. Newest notes come first.

The you lasts for the session. After a restart the note is read back from its file, and since anything could have written that file, it reads dropped as a file · writer unknown.

Copying#

copy on the card, or Enter with the note selected, copies the whole note. To copy part of it, drag across the text, then Ctrl+Shift+C or right-click and Copy.

Not yet#

A posted note can't be edited or deleted from the bench. Deleting its file removes it the next time the window opens.