Running shell commands in the Warp CLI

The Warp CLI is a full terminal as well as an agent. Every session runs a real shell, so you can run commands in the same place you prompt the agent. Commands and their output appear in the transcript alongside the conversation, and interactive, long-running, and full-screen commands behave the way they do in a plain terminal.

Shell mode

The input is agent-first: by default, pressing Enter sends your text to the agent as a prompt. Use shell mode to run a command instead:

1. Press ! at the start of the input. The prompt marker changes from > to !, and the statusline below the input shows Shell mode.
2. Type a command and press Enter. The command runs in the session’s shell, and the input returns to agent mode.

To leave shell mode without running a command, press Esc, or press Backspace at the start of the input. Any text you typed stays in the input.

In the transcript, each command you run is marked with a ! prefix and a highlighted row background, so shell commands stay visually distinct from prompts and agent responses. Output streams in below the command as it’s produced.

In shell mode, press Tab to complete commands and paths. For more on completions and menus, see Input and editing.

Note

Running a shell command cancels the agent’s in-progress response, if there is one.

Natural language detection

Out of the box, the Warp CLI never guesses what your input is: everything goes to the agent unless you enter shell mode. To type commands directly without the ! prefix, turn on natural language detection:

• Toggle detection - Run /natural-language-detection to turn detection on or off. The statusline confirms the change, and the setting persists across sessions.
• Automatic classification - With detection on, the Warp CLI classifies your input as you type. When the input looks like a shell command (for example, git status), the input switches to shell mode, and Enter runs it as a command. Everything else is sent to the agent.
• Biased toward the agent - Short or ambiguous input stays in agent mode, and a single word switches to shell mode only when it matches a command available in your shell.

The prompt marker and statusline always show the current mode before you press Enter. If detection classifies input differently than you intended, press Esc to switch back to agent mode, or press ! at the start of the input to force shell mode.

Command history

Press ↑ with the cursor on the first line of the input to open the history menu. The menu combines your previous prompts and shell commands in one list, with commands marked by a ! prefix.

• Filter - Keep typing to filter the list.
• Preview - Moving the selection previews each entry in the input and switches the input to the matching mode: recalled commands run as shell commands, and recalled prompts go to the agent.
• Submit - Press Enter to run the selected command or send the selected prompt.
• Dismiss - Press Esc to close the menu and restore what you had typed.

In shell mode, the history menu shows shell commands only. Commands you run in the Warp CLI are added to your command history.

Long-running and interactive commands

When a command keeps running, such as a dev server, a package install, or an interactive prompt, the Warp CLI hands input over to it:

• Input passthrough - Keystrokes and pasted text are forwarded to the running process, so password requests, confirmation prompts, and other interactive programs work as they do in a plain terminal.
• Interrupt hint - While the command owns input, a dimmed ctrl-c to interrupt hint replaces the input. Press Ctrl+C to stop the command.
• Type ahead - If you start typing your next command before the current one finishes, the typed characters are carried into the input when the command completes, with the cursor at the end. This matches type-ahead behavior in shells like zsh and bash.

One command runs in the session at a time. If the terminal is already busy, for example while the agent is running a command of its own, submitting a shell command shows a notice in the statusline and keeps your text in the input.

Full-screen terminal apps

Commands that switch the terminal to the alternate screen, such as vim, htop, or less, take over the whole Warp CLI view:

• The app renders full-screen and receives keyboard, paste, scroll, and mouse input, so editors and other terminal UIs are fully usable inside the Warp CLI.
• When the app exits, the transcript returns with your conversation intact.

Stopping commands and exiting

Ctrl+C performs one contextual action per press:

• While a command is running - Ctrl+C interrupts the running command, as in a plain terminal. It doesn’t exit the Warp CLI.
• While the agent is responding - Ctrl+C cancels the in-progress response. Text in the input is preserved.
• At an idle prompt - Ctrl+C clears the input if it has text.

After a press at the prompt, the statusline shows ctrl-c again to exit for about one second. Press Ctrl+C a second time within that window to exit the Warp CLI. This works even while the agent is responding; while a shell command is running, Ctrl+C keeps interrupting the command instead.

There are two other ways to exit:

• Ctrl+D - Exits immediately when the input is empty.
• /exit - Exits from the slash command menu.

When you exit, the Warp CLI prints a command you can use to pick the conversation back up later. See Managing conversations for resuming and switching conversations.