Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Quick Start

This page walks you through your first few minutes with mantis. No prior terminal expertise required — if you can run one command and press arrow keys, you’re set.

📦 Don’t have it yet? See Installation first, then come back.

1. Open something

Open the folder you’re currently in:

mantis

Or point it at a folder or a single file:

mantis ~/projects/my-app   # a directory
mantis README.md           # one file

You’ll see two panels: the file tree on the left, and the content of the selected file on the right.

2. Move around

You don’t need to learn anything special — use the arrow keys, or your mouse.

To do this…Press…
Move up / down in the tree↑ / ↓ (or k / j)
Open a file / expand a folderEnter or →
Collapse a folder / go up←
Jump between the tree and the file viewTab
Scroll the file↑ / ↓, PageUp / PageDown
QuitCtrl+c (or q while the tree is focused)

🖱️ Prefer the mouse? Click a row to select it, click a folder to fold/unfold, and use the scroll wheel in whichever panel your cursor is over.

3. Find a file fast

Two kinds of search, both fzf-style (just start typing to filter):

  • Press Ctrl+T to search by file name.
  • Press Ctrl+F to search inside files (full-text).

Use ↑ / ↓ to pick a result and Enter to open it. Press Esc to close search. Inside the popup, Tab switches between name and content search.

4. Peek at git

If you’re inside a git repository, you get this for free:

  • Tree entries are colored by git status (new, modified, deleted).
  • Press Ctrl+b to toggle blame — see who last touched each line.
  • Press H (while the tree is focused) for the history of the current file, then pick a revision to view its diff.
  • Press Ctrl+D for git mode: show only changed files, with their diffs.

There’s a whole page on this — see Git Features.

5. When you can’t remember a key

You never have to memorize the keymap:

  • Press F1 (or ?) for in-app help with all the keybindings.
  • Press Ctrl+P for the command palette — type what you want to do (e.g. “blame”, “theme”), and it shows the action and its shortcut.

6. Make it yours (optional)

  • Press t (while the tree is focused) to switch themes live (monokai, solarized, catppuccin, and more).
  • Want different colors or keybindings permanently? That all lives in a small mantis.toml file — see Configuration.

That’s the whole core experience. From here: