Chapter 10 — Slash commands
Slash commands are the control plane. Type / followed by a name to
run a command instead of sending the line to the model. Type /help
any time to see the full list.
CLI and GUI are peers. Every command in this chapter works identically from the CLI REPL, the GUI’s Terminal tab, and the GUI’s Chat tab — the
/<word>input goes through the same dispatcher in all three surfaces. A few commands that mutate tool state (/mcp add,/skill install,/plugin install,/kms use) even activate their effects in the current session without a restart; the table notes which ones.
Resolution order
When you type /<word>, thClaws resolves it in this order:
- Built-in command — the table below.
- Installed skill — rewrites the line into a
Skill(name: "word")invocation (Chapter 12). - Legacy prompt command —
.mdtemplate from acommands/directory, with$ARGUMENTSsubstituted (this chapter). - Unknown — yellow error.
First match wins. Skills never shadow built-ins because built-ins are tried first.
Built-in command reference
Session & model
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/help |
Show all built-in commands |
/model [NAME] |
Show current model, or switch to NAME (validated; typos revert) |
/models |
List available models from the current provider — prints fully-qualified routable ids (e.g. openrouter/google/gemma-3-27b-it:free) so any row pastes straight into /model <id>. Non-chat models (audio/image generation) are filtered out automatically; OpenRouter rows also filter when “Free only” is on in Settings. /models refresh re-seeds from the upstream provider list |
/provider [NAME] |
Show current provider, or switch |
/providers |
List every provider + its default model |
/save |
Force-save the current session to disk |
/load ID\|NAME |
Load a session by id, id-prefix, or title |
/sessions |
List saved sessions (newest first) |
/rename [NAME] |
Rename the current session (no arg clears the title) |
/resume ID\|NAME |
(CLI flag --resume) restart with a session loaded |
/clear |
Wipe in-memory history (doesn’t touch saved files) |
/history |
Print a message-count summary |
/compact |
Summarise history to free tokens |
/cwd |
Show the working directory (sandbox root) |
Memory & context
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/memory |
List memory entries |
/memory read NAME |
Print a memory entry |
/context |
Show the combined system prompt (project + agents + skills catalog) |
Tools, skills, plugins, MCP
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/skills |
List loaded skills |
/skill show NAME |
Full description + path for a skill |
/skill marketplace [--refresh] |
Browse the catalog at thclaws.ai/api/marketplace.json |
/skill search QUERY |
Substring-search the marketplace catalog |
/skill info NAME |
Marketplace detail for one skill (license, source, install URL) |
/skill install [--user] <name-or-url> [name] |
Install a skill — bare slug → marketplace lookup, otherwise git or .zip URL |
/mcp marketplace [--refresh] |
Browse hosted + installable MCP servers in the catalog |
/mcp search QUERY |
Substring-search the MCP marketplace |
/mcp info NAME |
MCP marketplace detail (transport, command/url, license) |
/mcp install [--user] NAME |
Install a marketplace MCP — clones source if needed, writes mcp.json entry |
/plugin marketplace [--refresh] |
Browse the plugin catalog |
/plugin search QUERY |
Substring-search the plugin marketplace |
/plugin info NAME |
Marketplace detail for one plugin (use /plugin show NAME for installed) |
/<skill-name> [args] |
Invoke an installed skill directly |
/<command-name> [args] |
Invoke a legacy prompt command (template) |
/plugins |
List installed plugins (enabled + disabled) |
/plugin install [--user] <url> |
Install a plugin bundle |
/plugin remove [--user] <name> |
Uninstall a plugin |
/plugin enable [--user] <name> |
Enable a disabled plugin |
/plugin disable [--user] <name> |
Disable without uninstalling |
/plugin show <name> |
Manifest details |
/mcp |
List active MCP servers and their tools |
/mcp add [--user] <name> <url> |
Register a remote (HTTP) MCP server |
/mcp remove [--user] <name> |
Remove an MCP server from config |
Knowledge bases (KMS)
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/kms (or /kms list) |
List every discoverable KMS; * marks ones attached to this project |
/kms new [--project] NAME |
Create a new KMS (default scope is user) |
/kms use NAME |
Attach a KMS to this project’s chats |
/kms off NAME |
Detach a KMS |
/kms show NAME |
Print the KMS’s index.md |
/kms html NAME [OUT] |
Generate a single-file interactive HTML site from a KMS (v0.8.5+). Agent reads the KMS via tools, designs components, writes <OUT>/index.html (default ./<NAME>-site/) in your workspace |
/dream [FOCUS] |
Consolidate the project’s KMS by mining recent sessions (GUI-only, dispatches a built-in side-channel agent) |
See Chapter 9 for the full KMS concept + workflow, including the /kms html HTML export, graph view, and the /dream consolidation flow.
Background research
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/research <query> |
Spawn a background research job — multi-iteration web search + multi-page KMS write |
/research [--kms NAME] [--max-pages N] [--max-iter K] [--score-threshold 0.X] [--budget-time T] <query> |
Start with overrides |
/research (or /research list) |
List all jobs (newest first) |
/research status ID |
Detailed view (phase, iteration, score) |
/research show ID |
Print synthesized result in chat |
/research cancel ID |
Cancel a running job; partial result discarded |
/research wait ID |
Block CLI prompt until terminal (CLI-only) |
See Chapter 20 for the full pipeline + KMS layout + flag reference.
Agent behaviour
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/permissions MODE |
Switch between auto and ask mid-session |
/thinking BUDGET |
Extended-thinking token budget (0 = off, only for Anthropic) |
/tasks |
List tasks / todos the agent has created |
/config key=val |
Override a config value for this session only |
/agent NAME PROMPT |
Spawn a user-driven side-channel subagent (GUI-only, runs concurrently with main) |
/agents |
List active background side-channel agents (id, name, elapsed) |
/agent cancel ID |
Cancel a running side-channel agent |
/dream [FOCUS] |
Dispatch the built-in dream agent to consolidate KMS (GUI-only) — see Chapter 9 |
/team |
Attach to the team tmux session (or show team status) |
/doctor |
Run diagnostic checks |
/usage |
Token usage by provider and model |
/version |
Show the thClaws version and commit SHA |
/quit |
Exit (aliases: /exit, /q). In the GUI, opens a native confirm dialog (“Quit?”) before closing — Cancel keeps the session open |
Shell escape
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
! <command> |
Run <command> in the terminal directly, bypassing the agent |
Useful for quick sanity checks (! ls, ! git status) without spending
model tokens.
Skill and command shortcuts
Any installed skill is callable as /<skill-name>:
❯ /skills
docx — Create, read, edit Word documents
pdf — Read, split, merge, OCR PDFs
…
❯ /pdf extract text from report.pdf
(/pdf → Skill(name: "pdf"))
Using the pdf skill to extract text from report.pdf…
Legacy prompt commands live as markdown files:
# .thclaws/commands/review.md
---
description: Code review a branch
---
Review the diff from `main` to HEAD. Flag security issues, bad naming,
and missing tests. Focus on $ARGUMENTS.
❯ /review authentication
(/review → prompt from .thclaws/commands/review.md)
Reviewing the diff, focused on authentication…
$ARGUMENTS expands to whatever came after the command name. If the
template has no placeholder and the user typed args, they’re appended
on a blank line.
Writing your own slash commands
For quick one-liners, drop an .md file into .thclaws/commands/.
For anything with scripts or scaffolding, make it a skill (Chapter 12).
For a whole bundle (skills + commands + MCP), ship it as a
plugin (Chapter 16).