The paper ground
seri paints its own background,#141413, so the same build looks the same on every machine.
That fill breaks terminal transparency and background blur, because every cell is now seri’s.
SERI_TUI_BACKGROUND=terminal keeps your terminal’s own ground. Any value that is not a
six-digit hex color does the same. A hex value such as #141413 is an explicit paint. The
renderer is built once at launch, so a change applies on the next run. /config edits the same
key. See Settings.
Text selection
Mouse reporting is off. Click-drag, double-click and triple-click are your terminal’s own, on every platform, including over SSH and inside tmux. Copy and paste go through the terminal, not through seri. There is no click target on a live row. Keyboard chords below are what reach the session.While a turn is running
Elapsed time and token count sit on one status row. When the model emits a reasoning trace, that row reads▸ thinking plus the same clock. A tool in flight drops the word thinking and keeps
the clock.
You can keep typing. Enter appends the line to a queue above the input box instead of discarding
it. Slash commands that do not start a turn, /mode, /model, /setup, still run immediately.
Ctrl-C also cancels the turn. It clears the queue rather than draining it. A second Ctrl-C is
fatal. See Stopping a turn.
The queue is not saved. Leaving the session with lines still in it drops them.
Reasoning traces
A model that streams thought text leaves a one-line caret in the transcript after that span settles,▸ thought · 4s. Most routes emit none, and then the screen looks as it always did.
Ctrl+T expands or collapses the last caret, or the live pin while a thought is still arriving.
The body is muted plain text, not markdown. Nothing in the thought is written to the session,
to compaction, or to a trajectory recording.
A later think after a tool call is a second caret. When that newer span settles, an earlier
caret that was expanded closes and its body is dropped. Ctrl+T still only opens the last one.
Keys that are not slash commands
The footer shows the current
/mode. Plan mode replaces that label with
⏸ plan mode on while the overlay is on. Shift-Tab does not cycle while that overlay is on.
Ctrl+O toggles the overlay, the same as empty /plan.
While a plan-mode question panel is open, Tab and Shift-Tab switch tabs inside that panel.
They do not complete a command and they do not cycle /mode.
Type / to open the completion list for every command, agent and skill. See Slash
commands.
Shell from the input box
A line that starts with! is a host shell command, not a task. ! ls is the documented form.
It does not go through the model and it does not go through the permission gate.
When an OS sandbox is available, SERI_ALLOW_UNSANDBOXED_COMMANDS=false keeps ! inside that
sandbox. Unset is on, so bang may leave the sandbox. When no OS sandbox is available and unsandboxed
commands are disallowed, bang is refused. seri doctor prints the sandbox row. See
Settings and Permissions.