Running owt with no arguments launches the Control Plane -- a Textual-based, prioritized decision surface that surfaces the most important worktree first. It is the only board; the legacy card-grid Switchboard was removed in v0.5.0.

Usage

owt

The Control Plane runs inside a dedicated tmux session called owt-switchboard (the session name is retained for backwards compatibility). If the session already exists, owt reattaches to it.

What you see

Worktrees are grouped into three priority lanes, rendered top-to-bottom. Empty lanes are hidden so the highest-priority work is always at the top:

  open-orchestrator · 4 rows · 14:32:08
  ▸ NEEDS YOU      (1)
  ▶ auth-jwt        merge conflict — needs manual resolution   [f] [a]
  ▸ READY TO SHIP  (2)
    fix-login       +3 commits · queued #1/2                   [s] [a]
    docs-update     +1 commits · queued #2/2                   [s] [a]
  ▸ IN FLIGHT      (1)
    api-refactor    45m · opencode · Refactoring REST routes   [a]

  ↑↓ nav | s ship | a attach | f fix | m merge | n new | q quit

See The Control Plane for a full description of the lanes and the design behind them.

Keyboard Controls

Navigation

Key	Action
↑ ↓ or j k	Move between rows, crossing lane boundaries
Enter	Attach to the focused worktree's session via the active backend
q	Quit the Control Plane

Row Verbs

Each row advertises the verbs available for its state in square brackets:

Key	Verb	Action
s	ship	Commit + merge + delete via a confirmation modal
a	attach	Hand off to the worktree's session via the active multiplexer backend
f	fix	Open the conflicted files in $EDITOR
m	merge	Merge without delete or cleanup
n	new	Create a new worktree (interactive); choose a standard session or a native plan-first Claude workflow

Global tmux Keybindings

These keybindings work from any agent tmux session managed by Open Orchestrator:

Key	Action
Alt+s	Return to the Control Plane
Alt+m	Merge current worktree
Alt+d	Delete current worktree
Alt+c	Create a new worktree (opens popup)

Persistent Session

The Control Plane runs in its own tmux session (owt-switchboard). This means:

• It stays running even when you switch to a worktree
• Press Alt+s from any worktree to jump back
• The board refreshes to show current status when you return
• Quitting with q exits the UI but the tmux session remains

Workflow Example

A typical Control Plane workflow:

1. Run owt to launch the Control Plane
2. Press n to create a new worktree for a task (optionally a plan-first workflow)
3. Press Enter on the new row to attach to the agent
4. Work with the AI agent on your task
5. Press Alt+s to return to the Control Plane
6. Navigate to a READY TO SHIP row and press s to ship it

See Also

• The Control Plane -- the lanes, verbs, and architecture in depth
• Multiplexer backends -- tmux and herdr, used by the attach verb
• owt new -- Create worktrees (including --workflow)
• owt switch -- Switch to a worktree