Hunter Bown
91 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
# Modes and Approvals
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DeepSeek TUI has two related concepts:
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- **TUI mode**: what kind of visible interaction you're in (Plan/Agent/YOLO).
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- **Approval mode**: how aggressively the UI asks before executing tools.
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## TUI Modes
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Press `Tab` to complete composer menus, queue a draft as a next-turn follow-up
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while a turn is running, or cycle through the visible modes when the composer is
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otherwise idle: **Plan → Agent → YOLO → Plan**.
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Press `Shift+Tab` to cycle reasoning effort.
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- **Plan**: design-first prompting. Read-only investigation tools stay available; shell and patch execution stay off. Use this when you want to think out loud and produce a plan to hand to a human (yourself later, or a reviewer).
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- **Agent**: multi-step tool use. Approvals for shell and paid tools (file writes are allowed without a prompt).
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- **YOLO**: enables shell + trust mode and auto-approves all tools. Use only in trusted repos.
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All three modes have access to the `rlm_query` tool — a structured tool call that fans out 1–16 cheap parallel children on `deepseek-v4-flash`. The model reaches for it when work is decomposable.
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## Compatibility Notes
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- `/normal` is a hidden compatibility alias that switches to `Agent`.
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- Older settings files with `default_mode = "normal"` still load as `agent`; saving rewrites the normalized value.
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## Escape Key Behavior
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`Esc` is a cancel stack, not a mode switch.
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- Close slash menus or transient UI first.
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- Cancel the active request if a turn is running.
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- Discard a queued draft if the composer is empty.
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- Clear the current input if text is present.
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- Otherwise it is a no-op.
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## Approval Mode
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You can override approval behavior at runtime:
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```text
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/config
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# edit the approval_mode row to: suggest | auto | never
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```
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Legacy note: `/set approval_mode ...` was retired in favor of `/config`.
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- `suggest` (default): uses the per-mode rules above.
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- `auto`: auto-approves all tools (similar to YOLO approval behavior, but without forcing YOLO mode).
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- `never`: blocks any tool that isn't considered safe/read-only.
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## Small-Screen Status Behavior
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When terminal height is constrained, the status area compacts first so header/chat/composer/footer remain visible:
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- Loading and queued status rows are budgeted by available height.
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- Queued previews collapse to compact summaries when full previews do not fit.
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- `/queue` workflows remain available; compact status only affects rendering density.
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## Workspace Boundary and Trust Mode
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By default, file tools are restricted to the `--workspace` directory. Enable trust mode to allow file access outside the workspace:
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```text
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/trust
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```
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YOLO mode enables trust mode automatically.
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## MCP Behavior
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MCP tools are exposed as `mcp_<server>_<tool>` and use the same approval flow as built-in tools. Read-only MCP helpers may auto-run in suggestive approval modes; MCP tools with possible side effects require approval.
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See `MCP.md`.
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## Related CLI Flags
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Run `deepseek --help` for the canonical list. Common flags:
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- `-p, --prompt <TEXT>`: one-shot prompt mode (prints and exits)
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- `--model <MODEL>`: when using the `deepseek` facade, forward a DeepSeek model override to the TUI
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- `--workspace <DIR>`: workspace root for file tools
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- `--yolo`: start in YOLO mode
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- `-r, --resume <ID|PREFIX|latest>`: resume a saved session
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- `-c, --continue`: resume the most recent session
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- `--max-subagents <N>`: clamp to `1..=20`
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- `--no-alt-screen`: run inline without the alternate screen buffer
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- `--mouse-capture` / `--no-mouse-capture`: opt in or out of internal mouse scrolling, transcript selection, and right-click context actions. Mouse capture is enabled by default so drag selection copies only user/assistant transcript text; hold Shift while dragging or use `--no-mouse-capture` for raw terminal selection.
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- `--profile <NAME>`: select config profile
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- `--config <PATH>`: config file path
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- `-v, --verbose`: verbose logging
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