Slash commands

The typed TUI command registry drives both /help and completion. Every canonical entry resolves to an exhaustive in-process handler or an explicit terminal-only intercept (/compact, /side); an added entry cannot silently fall through to the generic unknown-command response. Commands with required arguments complete into the editor rather than dispatching an incomplete operation.

Command	Purpose
/help	Show the command list
/clear	Clear the visible transcript; the run remains resumable
/compact [focus]	Summarize the transcript now
/context	Context token estimate and cache state
/telemetry	Show local lifecycle, hook, and exporter health without content
/cost	Spend and token usage known so far
/status	Model, effort, mode, cost, directory, and run id
/budget [turns]	Show the turn ceiling or raise it for this session
/model [id\|retry [id]]	Show, select, or retry a model
/effort [level]	Show or select effort
/mode [mode]	Show or select permission mode
/permissions [allow\|ask\|deny cap]	Show or edit session capability rules
/allow-code [on\|off]	Shortcut for the code-execution grant
/diff	Show the working-tree diff summary
/memory add\|list\|forget	Manage remembered facts
/sessions	List repository sessions
/side [question\|status\|close]	Ask on the side: a second conversation with its own context, cost and record
/workflows	Summarize the workflow cards already in this transcript
/jobs [list\|attach\|refresh\|detach\|write\|eof\|stop]	Inspect and control background process jobs
/fork	Branch the current session
/rewind	Branch the conversation from the current point
/resume [run-id]	Resume a recorded session in this terminal: the live session adopts that run's journal, transcript and identity
/transcript [query]	Open the fullscreen, bounded transcript search/view surface
/export [path]	Background-export Markdown without overwriting (Linux anonymous-inode publication; fail-closed elsewhere)
/agents	List the current run's immutable agent-definition snapshot
/skills	List discovered skills
/tools	List registered tools and capabilities
/mcp [status\|restart\|stop\|cancel] [server]	Show and control the session-owned lazy MCP servers
/hooks	Show user-configured lifecycle hooks
/config	Show resolved session and file configuration
/tunables [query\|load <file>]	Search all 160 canonical families, or inspect a workspace-relative frozen-request simulation
/lab [list\|request\|compare\|promote]	Inspect offline experiment requests and signed evidence comparisons
/login	Check the current credential against the selected provider
/theme	Select a color theme with preview
/init	Scaffold repository .iteron/config.json and AGENTS.md
/quit	Leave the TUI

Compatibility aliases resolve to the same typed command identity but are not advertised by help or completion. The names above are the documented registry; use /help in your installed build for its exact list.

/side opens a second conversation beside the session. It is deliberately separate on all three axes the session line reports:

• Context — its own message list. Nothing said in it enters the session transcript, nothing from the session is replayed into it, and the session's context estimate and compaction threshold do not move. It is a conversation, not a one-shot: a second /side <question> continues the first.
• Record — its own hash-chained journal under <runs>/side/. It is deliberately not written into the sessions directory, so it can never win the most-recent lookup that --continue resolves and never appears in /sessions. This also means it is not reachable by iteron --resume; the journal is on disk for audit, not for continuation.
• Cost — its own ledger, reported with the answer and by /side status. The session's cost line does not move because a side conversation ran.

What it deliberately shares: the provider handle and the durable route (so its spend is priced by the same signed rate card), the workspace, the interrupt flag, and — when the session has one — the shared USD ceiling. Money is money; a side conversation that could spend past --max-usd by keeping its own books would be an accounting trick.

A side conversation gets read-only tools only and cannot delegate, run commands, edit files, or open a side conversation of its own. It does not inherit the session's transcript, so tell it the context it needs. /side close ends it and reports what it cost; the next /side <question> starts a new one with a new record.

An ask is a foreground control request, exactly like /compact: the terminal waits for the answer, and if a session turn is in flight the ask is applied at that turn's boundary rather than racing it. The wait is bounded by the side conversation's own wall-clock and turn ceilings, not by the session's.

/tunables is a read-only inspection surface. Its catalog mode shows registry metadata, with requested/effective values explicitly marked as not resolved. The Linux load accepts one explicit JSON request no larger than 1 MiB through retained, no-follow workspace capabilities, resolves it with the provider-free resolver, and displays only the resolver's bounded redacted value previews. Platforms without an equivalent confined reader fail closed. Neither mode edits configuration, binds values to the running process, authenticates evidence, trains a policy, or claims benchmark improvement.