Keyboard shortcuts

Subspace is built for keyboard-first editing: almost everything you can do with a mouse in the outliner has a keyboard equivalent, and ⌘↵ is the one shortcut that shows up everywhere as “activate this node.” Shortcuts are written in macOS notation (⌘ = Cmd); on Windows/Linux use Ctrl in place of ⌘ and Alt in place of ⌥ unless noted otherwise.

Shortcut	Action
`Enter`	On a leaf bullet, create a new sibling below. On a parent, create the node’s first child (cursor-adjacent). On a folded parent, unfold it in the current window first.
`Tab`	Indent the current bullet (make it a child of the bullet above).
`Shift+Tab`	Outdent the current bullet.
`Backspace`	On an empty node, delete it.
`↑` / `↓`	Move focus to the previous/next bullet.
`Escape`	Commit the current edit.
`⌘Z`	Undo your own last command.
`⌘⇧Z`	Redo.
`⌘⇧M`	Toggle the page metadata panel (the JSON “EDN map”).
Click a bullet dot	Zoom into that node (it becomes the view root).
Click the fold chevron (▾/▸) in the row’s left gutter	Fold or unfold that bullet’s children.
`⌥↵` (or `⇧`-click a bullet dot)	Desktop shell only: open that bullet zoomed in a side-by-side pane.
`⌥⇧↵`	Desktop shell only: promote that bullet to a new tab.

Rich elements

⌘↵ is the universal “activate node” shortcut across every element type.

Shortcut	Where	Action
`⌘↵`	plain bullet	Send the bullet’s text as an instruction to the default agent.
`⌘↵`	code cell	Execute the cell (same as the header run button).
`⌘↵`	custom-function call (`name(...)`)	Convert the bullet into a live function element.
`⌘↵`	completed slash command (`/name …`) or agent invocation	Invoke it (same as pressing `Enter`).
` (backtick) at the start of a bullet	plain bullet	Convert it to a code cell.
`/` at the start of a bullet	plain bullet	Open the slash menu (custom functions and agents, filterable).
`[[` inside an argument or link	any text	Open page autocomplete.
`Enter` / blur	table cell	Commit the edit.
`Escape`	table cell	Cancel the edit.

See Rich elements overview, Code cells, and Custom functions for what each element does.

Search and command palette

Shortcut	Action
`⌘K`	Open hybrid search (pages, nodes, memory, files, mail) over the whole knowledge base. See Search.
`⌘⇧Space`	Desktop shell only: open the always-on-top quick capture palette (global hotkey, configurable).
`↵` in the quick capture palette	File the captured line to the inbox.
`⇥` in the quick capture palette	Run the captured line as a command instead of filing it.

Desktop shell

These apply only when running the Electron desktop app (or the web SPA in desktop mode).

Shortcut	Action
`⌘T` (or the `+` tab-strip button)	Add a new workspace-root tab.
`⌘W` (or the `×` tab-strip button)	Close the active tab.
`⌘⇧W`	Close the window (macOS rebinds this at the app-menu level so `⌘W` reaches the renderer for tab-close instead).
Click the `◫` affordance on a tab	Split the pane right (side-by-side view).

Mail

Mail keys are scoped to the mail page and go dead while compose is open or any input is focused.

Shortcut	Action
`j` / `k`	Move the thread-list selection down/up.
`Enter`	Open the selected thread.
`u` / `Escape`	Back to the thread list.
`e`	Archive the selected row (or the open thread), dropping it from Inbox to the Skipped section.
`r`	Reply: opens compose prefilled with To / `Re:` subject / thread id.
`c`	Blank compose.
`⌘↵`	In compose, send the message (same as clicking Send).