Projects, brews, panes, and tabs

Coldtea's workspace has a few plain nouns. They are worth learning because they tell you where an agent is working and where review context belongs.

The short version: a project is the repo, a tab is a lane of work, a pane is a visible surface, and a brew is an agent session.

Projects

A project is a local Git repository opened in Coldtea.

The project decides the base path for the workspace: terminal panes, editor views, worktrees, and most agent sessions start from it or from a worktree connected to it.

Before you prompt an agent, check the project. Editing the right file name in the wrong checkout is still the wrong change.

Tabs

A tab is a lane in the workspace. It might show the base project, a task-specific session, or a worktree with its own branch.

Tabs are useful when you need to keep two streams apart without losing sight of either one. For example, you might keep a dev server in one tab and a worktree session in another.

When you switch tabs, re-check the visible branch and path before sending more instructions. The active tab is part of the agent's working context.

Panes

A pane is a visible surface inside a tab.

Common panes include:

• A terminal for an agent or shell command.
• An editor for files and diffs.
• A task view for description, plans, and logs.
• A browser, QA, or review surface where your build enables it.

Terminal panes are real terminals. They are not a replay of a hidden chat. If an agent asks for permission or opens its own interactive prompt, you deal with it in that pane.

Brews

A brew is an agent session in Coldtea.

A brew should have a clear job. For small local work, the job can be in the prompt. For team work, the job should be in a task so the plan, logs, and review comments have somewhere durable to live.

A brew may run in the base project or in a worktree. The important question is always the same: which directory and branch is this agent using?

How they fit together

Use this stack when you feel lost:

1. Project — which repo is open?
2. Tab — which lane of work is active?
3. Pane — which surface am I looking at?
4. Brew — which agent session is doing the work?
5. Task — what intent and review record is this tied to?

That order keeps you from reviewing the wrong thing. It also makes agent feedback more precise. "In the docs worktree tab, send this comment to the Codex terminal pane" is boring, but boring is good when code is changing.

A good workspace habit

Keep risky work visible. If an agent is editing code, leave its terminal pane somewhere you can check. If a dev server or test command matters, give it its own pane instead of hiding it behind the agent.

Coldtea is built for visible work. Use the layout to make the important parts hard to miss.

Next: learn how agents run, or read about worktrees when one branch is not enough.