The terminal

The terminal shell preset, the default, sets up the VM for development in the terminal. This page shows what each of its tools is for and how to start it. To switch a tool off or choose another prompt or editor, see Shell.

What you get

Tool	Use it for	Start it with
Zsh with Oh My Zsh	Your shell, with completion, suggestions and history search	limanix shell dev-box on the Mac
Pure prompt	Directory, Git state and how long a command took	Every shell
CLI tools	Searching, reading files, querying data, sending HTTP requests	rg, fd, bat, jq and more
Lazygit	Git in a terminal interface	lazygit
Yazi	Browsing files	y
GitHub CLI	Working with GitHub from the terminal	gh
AstroNvim	Editing code, with language servers	nvim
tmux	Windows, panes and sessions that outlive a closed terminal	tmux

The minimal preset has Bash, Git and the CLI tools, plus an editor or tmux when you choose them.

Welcome and help

Each new shell session starts with the welcome: the state of the VM, its resources, network, shared folders and selected modules. When something needs attention, the welcome names it, with the command that helps. Run lmx welcome to show it again; The lmx command explains what it shows.

lmx help shows the commands of the VM and the help topics. lmx help TOPIC, such as lmx help tmux, shows what a tool gives you: its commands, common tasks and a link to its guide. The terminal tools have the topics zsh, cli-tools, lazygit, yazi, astronvim and tmux.

Zsh and the prompt

Zsh, with the Oh My Zsh framework, is your login shell: limanix shell dev-box on the Mac opens it.

Keys or command	What it does
Tab	Search the completion candidates
Right arrow	Accept the suggestion from your history
Ctrl-R	Search the commands you ran, with Atuin
Ctrl-T	Insert selected paths, with fzf
Alt-C	Change directory, with fzf
z NAME or zi	Return to a directory you visited, with zoxide
direnv allow	Approve a project's .envrc; it then loads whenever you enter the directory

Atuin keeps your history in the VM; it does not sync and needs no account. Run direnv allow again after .envrc changes. Personal settings go in ~/.zshrc, which Zsh reads after the managed setup. Keep it in your dotfiles to share it between VMs.

Pure, the default prompt, takes two lines. It shows the directory, the Git state and how long a command took, and its color tells you when the last command failed. Outside tmux, its right side shows a word when the VM needs attention, such as restart; status words lists them. Pure reads its settings, such as zstyle ':prompt:pure:path' color cyan, from ~/.zshrc. With prompt = "starship", Starship also shows the hostname, the versions of the languages it detects and the exit status.

CLI tools

Both presets include these commands:

Command	Use it to
rg	Search file contents
fd	Find files by name
fzf	Pick from a list with fuzzy search
bat	Read files with syntax highlighting
eza	List directory contents
jq, yq	Query JSON and YAML
xh	Send HTTP requests
btop	Watch the VM's CPU, memory and processes
dust, duf	See directory sizes and free file system space
tldr	Read command examples; run tldr --update once first

git diff and git log -p show changes through delta.

Git and Lazygit

The VM does not copy your Git identity from the Mac. Set it once:

VM

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

For private repositories, the VM account needs its own access, such as an SSH key mounted into the VM or a credential helper.

Run lazygit inside a repository to stage, commit, push and pull. Press Space on a file to stage it, c to commit, P to push, p to pull and ? for all keys. The GitHub CLI, gh, works from the same shell.

Yazi

Run y to browse files and their previews, starting from the current directory. Press q to leave and move your shell to the directory Yazi was in, or Q to leave without moving it. F1 or ~ shows the keys. A file you change or delete in a shared folder changes on the Mac too.

AstroNvim

AstroNvim is Neovim with a file explorer, fuzzy search, completion, a Git interface and diagnostics. Run nvim . in a project, such as /workspace, to open it. Space is the leader key: press it and pause for hints.

Keys	Action
Space, e	Open the file explorer
Space, f, f	Find files
Space, g, g	Open Lazygit
Ctrl-H/J/K/L	Move between editor splits and tmux panes
Alt-H/J/K/L	Resize them

AstroNvim is also the VM's EDITOR, which programs such as git commit open. To return to your last session after you quit, start nvim and run :lua require("resession").load("Last Session", { reset = true }). It restores the files, splits and cursor positions, not unsaved changes.

Customize it with Lazy plugin specifications in ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/. An init.lua or init.vim of your own in ~/.config/nvim replaces the bundled setup. Languages covers the language servers. With editor = "neovim", you get plain Neovim instead: nvim, vi and vim, with no language servers set up.

tmux

tmux starts only when you run it. Start a named session, or return to it:

VM

tmux new-session -A -s work

limanix-session work does the same, as does limanix shell dev-box --session work on the Mac; see Shell and sessions. Session names cannot contain . or :. The prefix is Ctrl-B: press it, release it, then press the second key.

Keys	Action
Ctrl-B, c	New window
Ctrl-B, n or p	Next or previous window
Ctrl-B, w	Choose a window
Ctrl-B, % or "	Split left and right, or top and bottom
Ctrl-H/J/K/L	Move between panes
Alt-H/J/K/L	Resize a pane
Ctrl-B, [	Copy mode: v selects, y copies to the Mac clipboard
Ctrl-B, d	Detach; the session keeps running
Ctrl-B, Ctrl-S	Save the layout
Ctrl-B, ?	Show all key bindings

The mouse works too. In tmux, Ctrl-L moves to the pane on the right instead of clearing the screen; press Ctrl-B, Ctrl-L to clear it. The right side of the status line shows a word when the VM needs attention.

tmux saves the layout every 15 minutes. Before limanix update, save it with Ctrl-B, Ctrl-S and wait for the save to finish. After the restart, start tmux: sessions, windows, panes and their directories come back, while running programs such as development servers and unsaved editor changes do not.

A typical workflow

Open a session from the Mac:

Mac

limanix shell dev-box --session work

In the VM, run cd /workspace and nvim . to open the project in the editor. Press Ctrl-B, c for a new window and run lazygit there to review your changes. Open one more window for the project's build and test commands. Switch windows with Ctrl-B, n and Ctrl-B, p. Detach with Ctrl-B, d, and run the same limanix shell command to return.

Set up the terminal on your Mac

Fonts, colors and the clipboard belong to the terminal on your Mac, not to the VM:

• Choose a Nerd Font and turn on true color.
• Allow OSC 52 clipboard access; see Clipboard.
• Send Option as Alt, for Alt keys such as Alt-H/J/K/L.

The VM knows Ghostty's terminal type, xterm-ghostty. By default, the tools draw in the colors and on the background of your terminal's theme; Environment and theme has the other choices.