Kora interface

Use this page to locate the main parts of the Kora window and understand where projects, folders, and sessions appear.

Projects, folders, and sessions

• Directoryproject/ The working context

  • Directoryfolders/ Up to 10; local paths or remote SSH mounts

    • …
  • Directorysessions/ Independent conversations, each with its own context

    • …

A project groups the folders Kora can operate on and the sessions that use those folders. Select a project or session from the left sidebar.

Project

A project has a name, holds up to 10 folders, and owns its sessions. Projects can be open, closed, or archived.

See First launch to create one, and Session manager for project lifecycle.

Folder

A folder is a file system location Kora can read, modify, and use as a working directory.

Kind	What it is	Use case
Local	An absolute path on the Mac	Work on files stored on the Mac
Remote (SSH)	A path mounted from an SSH server	Work on files stored on another machine

A project can mix local and remote folders. Tool calls (readFile, writeFile, executeCommand) route to the folder of the file currently in context — local or remote.

See Remote SSH workspaces for setting up SSH mounts.

Session

A session is one conversation in a project. Selecting a session restores its messages, todo list, queued messages, selected model, and execution state.

A session carries:

• Messages — the full conversation history
• Context — what the model can see right now (system prompt, tools, recent messages)
• Todo list — what the agent is working on (see Operational panel)
• Queue — messages you sent while the agent was busy
• Mode — the execution mode (Ask / Plan / Debug / Build)

Sessions also have a lifecycle: active, closed, archived, or deleted (with a 30-day recovery window). See Sessions for the day-to-day actions, and Session manager for browsing, exporting, forking, and restoring.

Window layout

Kora’s window is split into five regions.

Region	What it contains
Top bar	Panel controls, theme, synchronization status, and Settings
Left sidebar	Navigation tree — open projects with their folders and sessions; live status in the footer
Main area	Chat, editor, terminal, diff, logs, and generated-file panels
Right sidebar	Accordion with 7 sections (File Explorer, Remote, MCP Servers, Skills, Projects, Sessions, Git)
Composer	Message input, mode, model, effort, temperature, attachments, and send/stop controls

Left sidebar

The navigation tree. Lists open projects with their folders and sessions. Use the search box to filter projects, drag items to reorder, and click a session to switch to it. The footer shows live status (streaming, ready, error) and the current optimization mode.

Can be collapsed to a slim rail from the header or Cmd + \.

Main area

Open, close, resize, and rearrange panels in the main area. The layout persists across restarts.

Available panels include chat, editor, diff editor, terminal, logs, generated files, and File Explorer.

Right sidebar

An accordion with seven sections, only one open at a time:

Section	What it shows
File Explorer	The directory tree of the active folder
Remote: folder	One section per connected remote folder
MCP Servers	Connected MCP servers and their tools
Skills	Loaded skills (global + project)
Projects	Closed and archived projects (with Reopen / Archive / Delete)
Sessions	The full Session manager (browse, filter, export, import, fork, delete)
Git	The current branch and Git operations

Top bar

Quick toggles for the panels (logs, editor, terminal, file explorer), the theme picker, sync indicator, and the Settings button. The mode / model / effort / temperature selectors live in the composer, not here.

Composer

The input area at the bottom of the chat panel. Where you type messages, attach files and images, switch execution mode, pick the model, set reasoning effort and temperature, and submit or stop the stream. The Operational panel strip lives just above it.

Execution modes

The mode changes how Kora handles the next request. Use the mode control at the bottom-left of the composer, or press Cmd + Shift + M / Shift + Tab.

Mode	Behavior
Ask	Confirms destructive actions before running them
Plan	Writes a plan and asks for approval, then switches to Build to execute
Debug	Autonomous, with verbose reasoning and context retrieval visible
Build	Autonomous and silent; applies edits without asking

See Multi-step tasks for how modes interact with multi-step workflows.

Where to go next

First launch

Create your first project and start a session.

Sessions

Day-to-day session actions.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every shortcut and menu item.