The browser

albert-mini web              # open the workspace, signed in, in your browser
albert-mini web --no-open    # print the address instead

The browser workspace and the terminal are two views of one service on your machine: a session started in one shows in the other at the same moment, and an answer given at a gate in one is seen at once in the other.

Signing in

albert-mini web opens an address that carries this installation's access token once. The service swaps it at once for a cookie that the page cannot read and that other sites cannot send, and takes it out of the address. See Security.

The workspace

┌ menu bar: Session · Project · Git · View · Settings · Help ──────────────────────────────┐
│ SESSIONS        │ Fix the discount at checkout                ▷ ⌨  │ INSPECTOR          │
│ + New session   │ ✓ Plan ─ ◆ Your approval ─ ○ Build ─ ○ Checks ─ ◇ │ Changes Preview    │
│ ⌕ Find          │                                                    │ Terminal Context   │
│ ▾ shop          │   ❯ what you said                                  │ Task               │
│   ● Fix the…    │   Albert · deepseek-flash                          │                    │
│ ▾ api           │   the answer, the task's steps…                    │                    │
│   ○ How the…    │  ┌ ❯ the console ─────────────────────────────┐    │                    │
│                 │  │ + [Governed|Direct|Ask only] provider model│    │                    │
│ Every session   │  └────────────────────────────────────────────┘    │                    │
├ status bar: ● Live · shop · ⎇ main ↑1 ● 2 · Governed · provider / model · MCP · Inspector ┤

• The navigator, down the left: every project with its sessions under it, newest first, each with a lamp (working, waiting for you, stopped with an error); a new session, here or in a given project; a search; and every session in full. Each session's ⋯ holds Rename, Pin, Stop, Archive and Delete, and a session at work has a stop button of its own. A project's ⋯ starts a session there, takes the project off the list (its sessions are archived, still under Every session; its folder is untouched), or deletes its sessions. Fold the navigator to a rail of icons with the arrow at its top; it stays as you left it. Beside the open inspector on a screen narrower than 1360 pixels it folds by itself, so the conversation keeps its room.
• The session, in the middle. Its head has the title (click to rename), where it works and its mode, Stop while it works, Preview (▷) and the terminal (⌨), its actions (⋯), and, when its latest task is governed, the gate track: the work as circles, the two human gates as diamonds: Plan → Your approval → Build in a copy → Checks and reviews → Your acceptance → In your files. The step the task is on is lit: blue while it works, orange while it waits for you, red where it stopped. Click it for the task in full. Direct and Ask only have no gates, so no track.
• The conversation: what you said as prompt lines (❯), Albert's answers under a line naming the model. You see the work as it happens. Before Albert answers, each thing it reads or searches shows as a step (Read cart.py, Searched for "discount"), with the one under way spinning beside it. Then the answer flows in word by word, and the steps fold to one line (3 steps before answering) that opens again on a click. A task shows as a card from its first moment, while it is still planning, not only once the plan is ready. The card lists each step as it lands, with the step under way at its foot (Running python -m pytest -q…, or Thinking… while the model works out what to do next) and the time it has been at it. While the model thinks, the last of what it is thinking shows under Thinking…, for a model that shares it.
• The agent's steps: Alt+S, or Show the agent's steps in the View menu, shows or hides the steps of answers and tasks. Hidden, an answer or a task still shows the one step under way, so you see it working; a task's card has its own Steps switch too. The choice is kept in this browser.
• The console, at the session's foot: type at the ❯, and under it + (attach), the mode (Governed, Direct or Ask only, one click each; with Direct, whether each write is asked about or approved), the provider and the model, the agent, and send. Under the console, what it works on: the project, its checkout (the repository itself or one of its worktrees) and its branch, each a menu.
• The inspector (Alt+P), on the right: the change, a file at a time, of the task's isolated copy or of your working tree (every changed file listed at once, a file's diff read when you open it); the project running in Preview; a terminal in the project's folder; the session's context and usage; and the task in full, or, before there is one, how a task goes and the recent work in the project. Drag its edge to give it or the conversation more room (or focus the edge and use the arrow keys); the width is kept, and a double click puts it back.
• The status bar, along the foot: whether the service is live, the project and its branch (↑ ahead, ↓ behind, ● changed files), the mode, the provider and model, what the session's tasks used, MCP servers, and the inspector. Each is a button to where it is changed or seen in full.
• Every session (Alt+B): newest first, by day, pinned on top, searchable, each with its actions.

A new session opens on the launchpad: a greeting that names the project, the console, and tiles: the sessions to pick up again, how the two gates work (in the Governed mode), and the ways to start (open or clone a project, run it in Preview, open a terminal in it, connect a provider).

The menu bar

Click a menu to open it, move along with the arrow keys or the mouse, and press Esc to close it.

Projects

Open a folder… (the Project menu, or the project under the box) walks this machine's folders: your home, the folder the service started in, and every drive with its free space on the left; the folder's folders on the right, a repository marked with its branch. Type a path and press Enter to go straight there, filter the folders by name, and make a new folder where you are. Use this folder makes it the project new sessions work on.

Clone a repository… takes the repository's address (GitHub, GitLab or any Git host), where to put it (beside the project you are on, or your home; Browse… to choose) and, if you like, a folder name and a branch. Private repositories use the sign-in Git already has on your machine. Only https, http, ssh and git addresses are taken, and a password in an address is never shown.

Git

The branch under the box shows how far it is ahead (↑) and behind (↓) its upstream. Its menu, and the Git menu, do what you would do at a terminal:

• Commit…: a message, and the changed files the Changes tab shows. A file that looks like it holds secrets (.env, keys) is never committed. Commit and push does both.
• Pull and Push: from and to the branch's upstream. The first push of a new branch sets its upstream on origin.
• Switch branch…: your branches and the remote's; a remote branch becomes a local one that follows it. Uncommitted changes go with you, unless they clash.
• New branch…: a name, and the branch it starts from.
• Set up Git here: for a folder without a repository, on branch main. Direct work needs Git: it is the undo. Choose Direct in a folder without it and you are asked at once whether to set it up (see Modes and approvals). Governed builds in a copy and needs none.

shop  /  main checkout  /  main ↑1

Worktrees

A worktree is another checkout of the same repository, on a branch of its own, in a folder beside it (shop-worktrees/pricing for a repository in shop). Work there does not touch your main checkout, so one session can fix a bug while another builds a feature. Worktrees… lists them; New worktree… takes a branch name and the branch to start from, makes it, and opens a session there. Work here moves new sessions to one; removing one takes its folder and keeps its branch and commits (with changes not yet committed, you are asked twice). It works the same for a repository you opened and for one you cloned.

Preview

Preview (▷ in the session's head, Run this project on a new session's launchpad, or the Preview tab of the inspector) runs the project beside the conversation, so you see what Albert changed as you would use it:

• An app (a dev, start, serve or preview script in package.json, run with the package manager its lockfile names, or Django's manage.py) is started with its own command, and the panel says which and why: Runs npm run dev (the dev script in package.json). Run the app starts it. For anything else, type the command that starts it (python app.py, flask run) in the box under it; a command that brought the app up is remembered for next time.
• Web pages with nothing to start (an index.html, a browser game) are served as they are: Serve the pages. Only this computer can reach them, only to read; a file or folder whose name begins with a dot (.env, Git's folder), a file that looks like it holds secrets, or a link out of the folder is never served. Each load is fresh, so an edit shows on the next one.

Running, the bar says where it answers and how fast (Running · localhost:5173 · 200 · 12 ms), and holds Desktop, Tablet and Phone widths, Restart, Open in a new tab, and Stop. If the port it asks for is busy, it runs on another and says which. If the app does not start, or stops by itself, or answers with an error, the panel shows what it wrote: Ask Albert to fix puts it in the box, ready to send, and Logs shows the rest.

It keeps running while you work, and in the project's other sessions, until you stop it or the service ends; the terminal's /preview shows the same run. Restart starts an app again; for pages it loads them again.

Example. In a folder holding index.html, style.css and game.js, open Preview and press Serve the pages: the game plays in the panel, at http://localhost:8000/. Ask make the board bigger, apply the change, and press Restart to see it.

Terminal

Terminal (⌨ in the session's head, Open a terminal here on the launchpad, the Terminal tab, or Ctrl+`) is a real shell in the project's folder, in the page: zsh or bash on macOS and Linux, PowerShell on Windows.

It is off until you turn it on. The first time, the tab explains what it allows: what you type runs on this computer as you, outside the limits mini-AlbertCode puts on Albert. Only your own mini-AlbertCode page can connect to it, and no model key is in its environment. Turning it on or off is recorded; what you type is not.

• Tabs. + opens another shell (up to 8); × or a middle-click closes one.
• It keeps running. Hide it, switch to another tab, or reload the page: each shell carries on and comes back with what it wrote. A shell that has ended says so; press Enter for a new one.
• Open in your terminal app opens your own terminal in the project's folder instead, on or off.
• Turn off closes every shell it opened.

Example. Turn the terminal on, then run git status to see what Albert changed, or npm test to run the tests yourself while Albert waits for your answer at a gate.

Keys

Keyboard shortcuts, also under Help (/help):

Help and the guide

Help (the Help menu, /help or /docs in the box) searches this guide as you type: write a few words (update, model, stop, keys) and the sections that answer them are listed, best first, each with the line that matched. Click one, or press Enter, to read it in place; Online opens it on GitHub. The guide comes with mini-AlbertCode, so the search needs no network and always matches the version you have. With nothing typed, Help lists the guide's pages, every key, the answers at a gate and the modes.

/docs update          the sections on updating, the command first
/docs model           how to choose a model, in each interface

Gates

A gate is a card over the box with its answers in a row:

A pressed answer says so on its own button at once (Approving…, Accepting…, Starting the plan…) while the other answers wait, so it cannot be given twice. Once the service has it, the gate says what happened (Approved. The build starts in an isolated copy now.) until the work moves on, within a moment. Stop says Stopping… the same way.

No answer waits for the model. Plan it first and Do it directly close the question at once: the proposal says Starting the plan… and the steps show as Albert reads and plans; the plan comes back as its own question. Stop answers at once too, even while the model is in the middle of a long step: the session is free again straight away, and that step ends quietly in the background.

Example. In Ask only, Albert offers "Add greet() to app.py". Press p: the card closes, the proposal says Starting the plan…, and Reading app.py… shows below it. About half a minute later, with DeepSeek, Plan ready for your approval opens. Press Esc while it plans instead, and the session is free in under a second.

Settings

The Settings menu, or every command (Ctrl+K, Settings). A section at a time:

Speed sets how much the model thinks at each step of a task, shared with the terminal (/speed):

A model that thinks just as hard whatever it is asked (such as DeepSeek) has its thinking switched off where a step asks for a light think: at Fast, answers in the conversation and the review.

Example. "Build a simple HTML chess game" with DeepSeek, Governed, at Fast: the review took 43 s where it took 128 s, and the whole task about 10 minutes instead of 11 (605 s against 677 s). Planning and writing keep their depth: with DeepSeek's thinking off for writing too, the same game was built in 3 minutes once, but more often it took longer, the model clicking through its page hundreds of times.

Every check and every review runs at every speed. At every speed, a task that goes round in circles (the same steps answered the same way, or a failing step asked again in other words and failing the same way) is stopped, and what it wrote is checked and reviewed as it stands; it is never started over just to go round again.

Six themes, the same as the terminal's: Nebula and Aurora (the defaults, dark and light, by your system's setting: glass panels over a lit backdrop), Ember, Ember light, Slate and High contrast.

On a phone or a tablet

Below 900 pixels wide the navigator is a drawer (the ☰ at the left of the status bar opens it, and it shuts once you choose), the inspector takes the screen, and the launchpad's tiles are one column; every button is at least 44 pixels on a touch screen.