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Use profiles and Settings

Settings is a live control panel for the current profile. Use it to change the workspace while keeping terminals visible.

Open Settings

Open Settings from the app menu or the tab bar controls. Settings opens in its own native window, so you can move it beside the terminal and keep working.

Most changes apply while the window is open. Use Revert & Close if you want to discard the changes made during that settings session.

Settings tabs

Settings is organized by task:

  • Themes: browse built-in themes, apply sections, save custom themes
  • App Look: tune shell chrome, tabs, dock styling, and status bar colors
  • Terminal: change terminal colors, cursor, gradient, and ANSI palette
  • Fonts: set UI and terminal typography
  • Layout: adjust density, spacing, and panel behavior
  • Effects: configure HSync, Pure Noise, and Shader Lab
  • AI Help: configure providers, Agent Mode, Stall Recovery, and AI window appearance
  • Advanced: choose shell profiles, shortcuts, paste mode, language, privacy details, automation, profiles, and feature toggles

Add a custom shell profile

Use a custom shell profile when ButtonsCLI does not detect the shell or wrapper you want.

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Go to Advanced.
  3. Find Custom Shell Profiles.
  4. Add a label and command.
  5. Save Settings.

The profile appears in the + menu and the default-shell picker.

Change keyboard and paste behavior

The Advanced tab includes keyboard and clipboard settings.

Paste modes are:

  • Auto: chooses a platform-friendly default
  • Direct: writes text straight to the terminal process
  • Bracketed: wraps pasted text for shells and tools that support bracketed paste

Use Paste Slowly from the terminal context menu when a remote shell or full-screen terminal app mishandles a large paste.

Control startup visuals

The Advanced tab has two separate startup controls:

  • Show ButtonsCLI boot animation: shows the local animated logo splash again on launch.
  • Show ButtonsCLI startup display tab: opens the hosted read-only information tab when that feed is enabled.

If you previously chose Don't show this again on the boot animation, turn Show ButtonsCLI boot animation back on.

Use profiles

Profiles let you keep separate settings for different uses. A work profile can have different themes, shell profiles, saved shaders, and custom themes than an experimental profile.

Switching profiles saves the current profile, closes live terminals, and reloads the window with the selected profile.

Find config paths

The Advanced tab shows the active config location. Use that when you need to back up a profile or inspect saved settings.

Do not edit config files while the app is actively saving changes unless you are prepared to restart the app afterward.

Manage feature access

Some features may be free, preview-only, paid, internal, or experimental depending on the build and runtime config. Settings shows locked states where relevant.

If a feature is locked, refresh paid status or check the runtime mode shown in Advanced.