Grid
The Grid is Wardian's primary live workspace for interacting with active agent cards.
Use it when you need to watch multiple agents at once, type directly into a specific agent, scan normalized agent activity, or keep terminal state visible while agents run.
When to Use It
- Watch active terminals side by side.
- Scan chat transcripts and activity blocks side by side.
- Type directly into one provider session.
- Reorder agent cards to match the work you are supervising.
- Jump from the roster to the matching terminal.
Basic Workflow
- Start with Getting Started if you have not spawned an agent yet.
- Click Grid in the top workspace tabs.
- Select one or more agents in the roster when you want sidebar tools to target them.
- Click inside an agent terminal to type directly to that session.
- Drag agent cards to reorder the workspace when you need a different visual priority.
- Double-click an agent in the roster to bring that agent into view.
Display Modes
Grid cards can render either:
- Terminal: the provider terminal/TUI, including raw keyboard control, approvals, and raw output.
- Chat: normalized user, assistant, status, tool, approval, and terminal-output events for faster scanning, plus a compact prompt composer for standard text input.
Change the default globally in Settings > Grid > Grid card display. Each card also has a small Terminal / Chat mode switch in its header for temporary per-agent overrides. Switching from Terminal to Chat focuses that card's composer, and unsent Chat text stays with the agent while you switch modes.
Chat mode sends ordinary text through the same provider submit path used by Wardian's command tools. Use Enter to send and Shift+Enter for a newline in the composer. When Wardian recognizes an action-required prompt with approval choices, Chat mode renders those choices as buttons that submit the matching response. Switch back to Terminal mode when you need raw TUI controls, provider-specific keybindings, or detailed terminal behavior.
Chat mode renders common GitHub-flavored Markdown in agent messages, including tables, task lists, nested lists, blockquotes, strikethrough, autolinks, and fenced code blocks. Tool activity is summarized for scanning: empty successful tool results are folded into their command rows, while failures, changed files, command output, approvals, and errors remain visible.
In Terminal mode, Wardian follows conservative terminal shortcut handling. On macOS, Cmd+A selects the visible terminal buffer. Windows and Linux control-key combinations, including Ctrl+A and Ctrl+Shift+A, continue through to the shell or provider TUI by default.
Terminal output can also expose clickable HTTP/HTTPS URLs and workspace file paths, including links that wrap across terminal rows. URL links open in the system browser, while file path links use the external editor behavior configured in Settings.
Important Limits
- Grid only shows agents that have active or restorable Wardian sessions.
- Chat mode depends on provider transcript/watch data. If a provider does not expose structured activity, Wardian falls back to retained terminal output where possible.
- Action-required prompts can be answered from the chat composer or clickable approval choices when the provider accepts text input. Terminal mode remains the fallback for provider-specific approval screens.
- Terminal state is preserved across common remounts, but provider TUIs can still repaint after resize or reconnect events.
- Use Command Panel for repeatable fan-out messages instead of typing the same text into each terminal.