Agent view and Editor view¶

Cortex Code Desktop runs in two top-level workspace views: Agent view for running and reviewing many agents across workspaces in one window, and Editor view for the full VS Code-style IDE scoped to a single workspace.

Views at a glance¶

Agent view¶

Agent view replaces the editor area with an agent-first surface. The conventional editor parts (activity bar, primary side bar, editor groups, panel) are hidden so the chat and its surrounding context get the full window. Agent view is designed around three capabilities:

1. Parallelism across workspaces, in one window¶

Editor view is one workspace per window. Agent view lets you drive agents in many workspaces side-by-side without juggling windows.

• The sidebar lists all workspaces you’ve added, each with its own conversation history.
• Switching workspaces is a single click, with no Open Folder and no window reload.
• Each conversation runs in its own workspace context: file pickers, terminals, search, and tool calls all scope to that conversation’s folder.
• A built-in Playground workspace is always available for one-off chats that don’t belong to any project.

2. Built-in review of agent changes¶

Each conversation tracks the files an agent has modified. Agent view surfaces these changes directly, so reviewing and acting on them does not require opening separate source-control or diff views.

• A Files changed panel in the side rail lists every file the active conversation has touched, with inline diffs and per-file accept and reject actions.
• Pending changes, approval prompts, and diff stats are scoped to each conversation and persist as you switch between them.
• Bulk actions (accept all, reject all, open file) are available without leaving the Agent view surface.

3. Background execution and notifications¶

Conversations continue running when not in focus. Agent view’s sidebar acts as a status dashboard for everything in flight at once. Editor view’s chat panel shows only the active session.

• The sidebar shows per-conversation state for every workspace at once: in progress, awaiting approval, unread.
• Approval prompts and notifications attach to the conversation that needs attention, so you can triage many in-flight agents without switching focus.
• Automations appear in the same list, with the same indicators.

Surfaces at a glance¶

• Sidebar lists your workspaces and their conversations, with search and a button to start a new agent.
• Conversation pane shows the active chat, including tool calls, approvals, and inline diffs.
• Right-hand rail holds Files changed, terminal, and other inspectors for the active conversation.

Editor view¶

Editor view is the familiar IDE: file explorer, editors, source control, run & debug, terminal, and extensions are all front-and-center. Chat lives in a side view rather than as the main pane, so you can edit code and talk to the agent simultaneously.

• All editor-area features (multi-cursor editing, find/replace across files, language tooling, debugging, tasks) are available exactly as in upstream VS Code.
• Extensions, keybindings, and settings carry over. Editor view is not a stripped-down view; it is the full workbench.
• The chat side view shares the same conversation list as Agent view, so you can pick up where you left off.

Workspace scoping¶

Conversations, skills, and plugins are all scoped per workspace. Agent view and Editor view are different views over the same underlying state, not separate stores.

• Conversations belong to the workspace they were started in and persist in that workspace’s storage. Editor view shows the current workspace’s conversations; Agent view shows conversations across every workspace you’ve added, grouped by workspace.
• Skills and plugins resolve from a global set (shared across all workspaces) plus the active conversation’s workspace-local set. An agent running in one workspace only sees that workspace’s project-defined skills and plugins, never another workspace’s.
• Tool calls (file picker, terminal, search) always run in the active conversation’s workspace context, regardless of which view you’re using.
• Starting, continuing, archiving, or deleting a conversation in one view is reflected in the other.

When you toggle, your active conversation follows you only if it belongs to the workspace Editor view is open on. Conversations from other workspaces remain accessible in Agent view’s sidebar.

Choosing a view¶

Rule of thumb: if you are writing the code, use Editor view. If agents are writing the code and your job is to dispatch them, watch them, and review their output, especially across more than one workspace, use Agent view.

• Hand-editing, debugging, using extensions: Editor view. Keep the agent in the loop via the chat side view.
• Driving one or more agents on real work: Agent view. Chat gets the main pane and the side rail surfaces the agent’s changes, terminal, and other context as the work progresses.
• Running agents across multiple repos or workspaces in parallel: Agent view. One window covers all of them.
• Long-running tasks or automations: Agent view. Unread indicators and notifications are designed for stepping away and coming back.