Tabs, panes & split layouts

Drag-to-split panes, tab groups, and pinned boundaries.

Orca's pane system is designed for watching multiple agents work without losing context. Tabs group into panes; panes split into layouts.

Drag a tab to a pane edge to split — terminals, diffs, and browser tabs side by side
Drag a tab to a pane edge to split — terminals, diffs, and browser tabs side by side

Tabs

Each tab holds one thing: a terminal, an editor buffer, a browser, a diff, a PR. Tabs live inside a tab group.

  • Drag a tab up-down within a group to reorder.
  • Drag a tab onto another group to move it.
  • Close every editor file tab in the active worktree with Cmd+Option+W on macOS or Ctrl+Alt+W on Windows / Linux.
  • An active-tab color bar marks which pane is focused.

Split panes

Drag a tab to the edge of a pane to create a split:

  • Right edge — splits left/right (horizontal split).
  • Bottom edge — splits top/bottom (vertical split).

Splits nest. You can have an agent terminal on the left, a diff view on the top-right, and a browser tab on the bottom-right — all at once.

Any tab type can split with any other — agent terminal, diff, browser, editor, PR view all coexist in one pane tree.
Any tab type can split with any other — agent terminal, diff, browser, editor, PR view all coexist in one pane tree.

Terminal tabs can also split inside the tab. Use the terminal tab menu for Split terminal right or Split terminal down, or use the split button in the active terminal pane header for a right split.

Pinned boundaries

Pane boundaries stay where you put them. Resizing the window doesn't shuffle your layout; boundary positions are saved per worktree.

Tab groups across worktrees

Each worktree owns its own tab layout. Switching worktrees swaps the entire pane tree — your browser tab, terminal, and diff reappear exactly as you left them.