QuickTerm v4.0.0

Released 2026-10-04.

Workspaces and sidebar

• A window no longer has a main workspace. Every workspace, scratch
  included, opens as its own view with its own layout, autosave and close
  button. Closing any view saves it and keeps its terminals running. Closing
  the last one leaves an empty area with a New scratch button.
• Opening a workspace that is already on screen focuses its view. Otherwise
  the new view takes half of the active one. The sidebar, the palette, the
  Dashboard, quickterm open and Explorer's Open QuickTerm here open or
  focus a view and never swap the workspace inside one. Open QuickTerm
  here opens a new scratch view in that folder.
• The sidebar is one list in a fixed order: every saved workspace in
  alphabetical order, empty ones included, then scratch views, then
  Unassigned. Terminals are sorted by name. A terminal that needs you gets a
  chip and keeps its place.
• Click a workspace to open or focus it. On hover it offers Close view
  and a menu with Open in new window, Workspace settings and Delete
  workspace. The active workspace shows its folder, the Explorer and VS Code
  buttons and the save dot on a second line.
• Every live terminal row has Detach and Kill on hover or keyboard
  focus. Kill asks in a small box beside the row. After a click, Cancel has
  the focus; after the Delete key, Kill has it and Enter confirms. A failed
  kill keeps the row, shows the reason and offers Retry.
• Right-click, Shift+F10 or the menu key on a row offers Open, Move to the
  active workspace, Detach, Rename and Kill. Double-click or F2 renames.
• Clicking a terminal focuses it where it is shown, opens its workspace when
  that is closed, or moves an Unassigned terminal into the active view.
• Removed: the "Main window" row, the colored view navigation, the
  "workspace beside" footer button and the strip of terminal choices. The
  floating + in hidden mode no longer drags; it sits 12 px from the top.
• A view keeps its color across restarts. Closing a scratch view keeps only
  the terminals that are busy or that you typed into. Idle untouched shells
  are left to the idle cleanup, so they no longer keep QuickTerm in the tray.
• Kill all terminals in the Dashboard closes the killed panes in every
  view of every native window.

Agents: Claude Code and Codex

• Codex is a terminal type next to Claude Code, under Agents in
  Settings > Terminals > Add. Both use one launch mode setting: new
  conversation, continue latest, choose session and agent manager. Codex
  also has fork a session. Claude Code profiles keep their 3.x mode.
• Agent profiles have typed options. Claude Code: model, permission mode,
  effort, session name and extra folders, and under Advanced an extra system
  prompt, agent, MCP config, settings file, fork when resuming, verbose and
  connect IDE. Codex: model (suggested from Codex's model cache), approval,
  sandbox, approve for me, bypass approvals and sandbox, reasoning effort,
  web search, config profile and extra folders, and under Advanced worktree,
  inline mode, local model and local provider.
• The palette lists the workspace folder's recent conversations as "resume
  Claude session: <title>" and "resume Codex session: <title>". Restarting
  such a pane resumes the same conversation. Scratch views list the
  conversations of their own folder. Codex subagent and background threads
  are left out, and a Claude session renamed with /rename shows that name.
• The palette has a row for every mode of every agent profile, plus "split
  agent view". Splitting an agent manager pane starts a normal conversation
  in the workspace folder. A restored agent pane whose process is gone
  offers Continue latest and Choose session for both agents.
• When Codex is installed through npm, QuickTerm starts its native
  codex.exe instead of the .cmd shim. For an agent started through a
  .cmd or .bat file, QuickTerm refuses arguments that cmd.exe would
  reinterpret.

SSH

• SSH and SFTP profiles can use the Windows OpenSSH client next to the
  bundled PuTTY tools. New profiles pick OpenSSH when it is installed.
  Existing profiles keep PuTTY.
• QuickTerm reads host aliases from ~/.ssh/config. It follows Include and
  skips Match blocks and wildcard hosts. Settings > Terminals > Add has a
  "From ~/.ssh/config" heading with one entry per alias, and the Host field
  suggests aliases. Picking one shows the resolved user, port, key and
  ProxyJump as placeholders. Fill from ~/.ssh/config copies them into
  the fields.
• OpenSSH profiles take a ProxyJump. QuickTerm refuses a .ppk key with
  OpenSSH, a ProxyJump with PuTTY, and a host or user that starts with "-".
  Without an OpenSSH client the error names the Windows optional feature to
  install. A PuTTY profile whose key is not a .ppk offers Switch to
  OpenSSH.

Settings

• Settings has seven tabs: General, Window, Shortcuts, Terminals, Snippets,
  Advanced and About. The update notification switch moved to Advanced.
• Terminals and Snippets show a filterable list with the editor beside it.
  Rows mark problems and unsaved changes. Add is a menu grouped into
  Shells, Agents, Remote, From ~/.ssh/config, Devices, Containers and
  Desktop. In a window narrower than 820 px the editor replaces the list and
  has a Back button.
• One Save stores everything. The footer button, Ctrl+S in Settings and the
  Save button in each editor do the same thing. "Save connection" is gone,
  and Open stays disabled until a terminal is saved.
• The terminal editor shows name, description and command first, then the
  fields of its type, then launch mode, shortcut and autostart. Arguments,
  environment and the start command are under Advanced.
• No native drop-down list is left. Every choice opens a QuickTerm menu.

Shortcuts and search

• Shortcut fields record the keys you press. Esc cancels, Backspace clears.
  Global hotkeys pause while a field records, so a key QuickTerm already
  uses is recorded instead of fired. Letters follow your keyboard layout.
• A changed summon key or terminal shortcut works as soon as you save, with
  no restart. A key that another program holds is reported beside the field
  and in the Save message. Only host and port still need a restart.
• A new global shortcut needs Ctrl, Alt or Win. QuickTerm warns about Alt
  keys it uses itself and about the Alt keys shells and agents use.
• The Shortcuts tab lists the summon key, every terminal's shortcut and the
  in-app keys. Help shows the same key list.
• A search box at the top of Settings (press / to reach it) finds any
  setting, terminal or snippet, opens its tab and highlights the field.
  Escape clears the box before it closes Settings.
• The palette (Alt+K) adds "open workspace", "close workspace view", "new
  scratch view", "go to terminal", "setting", "edit terminal", "edit
  snippet" and "kill terminal" rows. "kill terminal" lists the live
  terminals; Enter on one asks once more, Escape goes back.
• Palette prefixes narrow the list: > actions, @ workspaces and
  terminals, # settings and terminal configs, ! snippets.
• "load workspace" and "show workspace beside" became "open workspace".
  "attach from another workspace" is now "move terminal here".

Window and overlay

• Settings > Window sets the default window size, from presets or custom,
  or from Use this window's size. QuickTerm remembers the last size and
  position unless you turn that off, and restores them only when they still
  fit on a monitor. New windows open at the configured size, offset from
  the first one.
• An optional drop-down overlay turns the summon key into a toggle. The
  window slides in from the top or bottom edge of the monitor under the
  cursor, or of the primary monitor, at the width and height you set. It
  stays on top and hides when another program takes the focus; both are
  settings. Turning the overlay off restores the normal window at the next
  summon.
• The overlay stays open while QuickTerm opens a link, a folder or an
  elevated terminal. Tray Open shows the overlay when it is on.
• Sidebar and Settings text keeps at least 4.5:1 contrast on every surface,
  and the sidebar marks focus and state in Windows high contrast mode.

Themes

• The built-in themes are replaced by 20 schemes taken from their upstream
  sources: Graphite (the house theme, still the default), Catppuccin Mocha
  and Latte, Tokyo Night, Storm and Day, Rosé Pine and Rosé Pine Dawn,
  Kanagawa Wave, Dragon and Lotus, Gruvbox Dark and Light, Everforest and
  Everforest Light, Nord, Dracula, GitHub Dark and Light, and Carbonfox.
  Seven of them are light.
• The sidebar, Settings and menus take their colors from each theme's own
  editor palette, not only from the terminal. Status colors and the colors
  of workspace views come from the theme's ANSI hues.
• The theme chooser in Settings > General is a menu grouped into Dark, Light
  and Custom. Every row shows the theme's accent and eight ANSI colors on
  its background.
• Graphite keeps its sidebar colors. Its terminal colors were rebuilt so
  each row of the ANSI palette has one even lightness.
• Every color in the stylesheets comes from a theme token. Tests check text
  contrast in every theme and fail on a color literal outside the theme
  definitions.

Upgrading from 3.x

• config.json upgrades in place. claude_mode becomes agent_mode.
  Claude Code profiles also keep writing claude_mode, so 3.x still knows
  their mode after a downgrade.
• 3.x cannot read some shortcuts 4.0 records, for example Ctrl+Alt+Minus or
  Ctrl+Alt+Left. 4.0 saves such a key under a field only 4.0 reads and
  leaves the old field empty. After a downgrade 3.x loses that one shortcut
  instead of resetting the whole configuration.
• A 3.x shortcut without Ctrl, Alt or Win still loads and works. The
  settings history in Settings > About can still restore a version that
  holds one. Only new shortcuts need a modifier.
• SSH profiles from 3.x keep PuTTY. PuTTY hosts and user names with spaces
  still load; the rule against whitespace applies to OpenSSH profiles only.
• The stored view arrangement is converted once. The 3.x main workspace
  comes back as an ordinary view. Scratch views are not restored after a
  restart, as before.
• A config that names a removed theme opens with the closest new one, for
  example One Dark as Tokyo Night Storm and Monokai as Dracula. The stored
  name is kept until you pick another theme.
• window_state.json in %APPDATA%\quickterm is new and optional. QuickTerm
  ignores it when it is damaged.

Verification limits

• Real Claude Code and Codex processes were started from Settings and
  killed from the sidebar. No SSH connection was opened: ~/.ssh/config
  aliases were read and resolved with ssh -G, and the argument lists are
  covered by tests.
• The recent conversation lists read files that Claude Code and Codex keep
  for themselves. A CLI update can change their format; the list is then
  empty, and the CLI's own session picker still works.
• The overlay was summoned, hidden on focus loss and turned off on one
  Windows 11 desktop with one 1920x1080 monitor, from the source build.
  The packaged build was checked through its HTTP API. Several monitors
  and high-DPI scaling were not tested.
• Windows release binaries remain unsigned and can trigger SmartScreen.

Install with QuickTerm-v4.0.0-Setup.exe or unpack the portable ZIP. Verify downloads against SHA256SUMS.txt. Release verification: docs/RELEASE-4.0.0.md.