Navigate the console TUI

Prerequisites

• A paired device (see Pair a new device)
• os-console installed and launched
• An active session (see Open your first Totebox session)

Purpose

Learn the console's real screen layout and status bar fields well enough to navigate confidently — a few minutes, and it stays accurate for every cartridge you'll use later.

Procedure

1. Launch os-console and observe the three fixed regions, top to bottom: a one-row F-key strip, the active cartridge's content filling the rest of the screen, and a one-row status bar at the very bottom.

2. Read the F-key strip. It shows a label for every F-key slot, with the currently active one highlighted and unloaded slots dimmed.

3. Read the status bar. Left to right: your identity as username@tenant; the Machine-Based Authorization link state (MBA LINK ACTIVE, MBA LINK INACTIVE: <reason>, or MBA LINK PENDING); the active slot's full label (e.g. F9: SLM, not a bare number); and elapsed session time. A [N pending] badge appears only when you have pending pairing requests.

   Note: there is no SLM-tier indicator in the status bar. Inference tier and circuit state are shown inside the F9 dashboard itself, not in the persistent status bar.

4. Press any F-key to switch to that slot. The content area updates immediately, and the F-key strip's highlight and the status bar's active-slot field both confirm which slot is live.

5. Switch away from a slot and back. Cartridges hold their own state — a document you were editing or a dashboard you were viewing is exactly as you left it.

6. Check each cartridge's own hint line for its specific key bindings. They aren't universal — F9's dashboard responds to R (refresh) and ? (help), for example, but a different cartridge's bindings are its own and shown in its own interface, not in a shared reference table.

Expected outcome

You can read every field in the status bar correctly, switch between loaded F-key slots without losing a cartridge's state, and know to check each cartridge's own hint line for bindings specific to it.

Verification

Switch to at least two different loaded slots and confirm both the F-key strip's highlighted label and the status bar's active-slot field update to match each time.

Rollback

Navigation has no state to roll back — switching slots or exiting the console changes nothing persistent by itself. If a cartridge's own action does write something (submitting input at F12, for example), that cartridge's own guide covers its own rollback.

Next steps

• Use the F-key cartridge model — what each default cartridge actually does, corrected against real source
• Explore the console for the first time — a guided first tour combining layout, F9, and F12

See also

• app-console-keys — console chassis and F-key framework — the chassis, the Cartridge trait, and the status bar's implementation
• Machine-based authorization — what the MBA link states mean
• Pair a new device — register a device before opening the console