Interactive mode

Complete reference for keyboard shortcuts, input modes, and interactive features in Grok One-Shot sessions.

Keyboard shortcuts

note

Keyboard shortcuts may vary by platform and terminal. Press ? to see available shortcuts for your environment.

General controls

Shortcut	Description	Context
Ctrl+C	Cancel current input or generation	Standard interrupt
Ctrl+D	Exit Grok One-Shot session	EOF signal
Ctrl+L	Clear terminal screen	Keeps conversation history
Ctrl+O	Toggle verbose output	Shows detailed tool usage and execution
Ctrl+R	Reverse search command history	Search through previous commands interactively
Up/Down arrows	Navigate command history	Recall previous inputs

** Parity Gap:** Grok One-Shot does not support Ctrl+V for pasting images from clipboard. Image support may be added in future releases.

** Parity Gap:** No Esc + Esc rewind functionality. Code/conversation rewinding is not yet implemented.

** Parity Gap:** No Tab toggle for extended thinking mode. Extended thinking is not yet supported.

** Parity Gap:** No Shift+Tab or Alt+M for toggling permission modes. Permission system is simpler than Claude Code's IAM.

Multiline input

Method	Shortcut	Context
Quick escape	\ + Enter	Works in all terminals
macOS default	Option+Enter	Default on macOS
Control sequence	Ctrl+J	Line feed character for multiline
Paste mode	Paste directly	For code blocks, logs

** Parity Gap:** No /terminal-setup command for configuring Shift+Enter binding. Use the default multiline methods above.

tip

Use backslash + Enter (\ + Enter) for multiline input. This works consistently across all terminals.

Quick commands

Shortcut	Description	Notes
# at start	Memory shortcut - add to GROK.md	Prompts for file selection
/ at start	Slash command	See slash commands
! at start	Bash mode	Run commands directly and add execution output to the session
@	File path mention	Trigger file path autocomplete

Vim editor mode

** Parity Gap:** Grok One-Shot does not yet support vim editor mode. This feature may be added in future releases based on user demand.

Command history

Grok One-Shot maintains command history for the current session:

• History is stored per working directory
• Cleared with /clear command (if implemented)
• Use Up/Down arrows to navigate (see keyboard shortcuts above)
• Note: History expansion (!) is disabled by default

Reverse search with Ctrl+R

Press Ctrl+R to interactively search through your command history:

1. Start search: Press Ctrl+R to activate reverse history search
2. Type query: Enter text to search for in previous commands - the search term will be highlighted in matching results
3. Navigate matches: Press Ctrl+R again to cycle through older matches
4. Accept match:

• Press Tab or Esc to accept the current match and continue editing
• Press Enter to accept and execute the command immediately

5. Cancel search:

• Press Ctrl+C to cancel and restore your original input
• Press Backspace on empty search to cancel

The search displays matching commands with the search term highlighted, making it easy to find and reuse previous inputs.

Background bash commands

Grok One-Shot supports running bash commands in the background, allowing you to continue working while long-running processes execute.

How backgrounding works

When Grok One-Shot runs a command in the background, it runs the command asynchronously and immediately returns a background task ID. Grok can respond to new prompts while the command continues executing in the background.

To run commands in the background, you can either:

• Prompt Grok One-Shot to run a command in the background
• Press Ctrl+B to move a regular Bash tool invocation to the background. (Tmux users must press Ctrl+B twice due to tmux's prefix key.)

Key features:

• Output is buffered and Grok can retrieve it using the BashOutput tool
• Background tasks have unique IDs for tracking and output retrieval
• Background tasks are automatically cleaned up when Grok One-Shot exits

Common backgrounded commands:

• Build tools (webpack, vite, make)
• Package managers (npm, yarn, pnpm)
• Test runners (jest, pytest)
• Development servers
• Long-running processes (docker, terraform)

Bash mode with ! prefix

Run bash commands directly without going through Grok by prefixing your input with !:

! npm test
! git status
! ls -la

Bash mode:

• Adds the command and its output to the conversation context
• Shows real-time progress and output
• Supports the same Ctrl+B backgrounding for long-running commands
• Does not require Grok to interpret or approve the command

This is useful for quick shell operations while maintaining conversation context.

See also

• Slash commands - Interactive session commands
• CLI reference - Command-line flags and options
• Settings - Configuration options
• Memory management - Managing GROK.md files