Layouts
Apply Paneflow's four built-in layout presets - even horizontal, even vertical, main vertical, and tiled - to reshape a workspace in one keystroke.
Paneflow ships four one-shot layout presets for the active workspace. They rebuild the pane tree from the panes you already have: no new shells, no closed shells, no workspace switch.
TL;DR. Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+1 lays panes out in a row, Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+2
stacks them in a column, Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+3 parks the focused pane on
the left with the rest stacked on the right, and Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+4
tiles everything into a grid.
How do I apply a layout preset?
Each preset has a default keybinding and an action name you can remap in paneflow.json:
| Preset | Keys | Action | Result | Focus after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Even horizontal | Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+1 | layout_even_horizontal | One row, equal widths | First pane in tree order |
| Even vertical | Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+2 | layout_even_vertical | One column, equal heights | First pane in tree order |
| Main vertical | Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+3 | layout_main_vertical | Focused pane on the left, remaining panes stacked on the right, 50/50 outer split | Focused pane |
| Tiled | Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+4 | layout_tiled | Balanced tmux-style grid | First pane in tree order |
Press the key from any pane. A single-pane workspace is a no-op.
What changes?
Presets operate on every pane in the active workspace. They replace the current split tree and ratios with the preset tree. They do not change the workspace count.
The preset names above are keybinding action names. Workspace config
and paneflow up use preset values instead: even_h, even_v,
main_vertical, and tiled.
What stays intact?
The panes keep their shell, running command, scrollback, selection, environment, working directory, and process tree. A long-running build continues in whichever slot its pane lands in.
Layout presets do not persist processes after Paneflow closes. Session restore rebuilds the workspace layout and terminals; it does not keep dead child processes alive.
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+= runs split_equalize: it equalizes existing split
ratios without changing the tree shape.
Which preset should I choose?
Use even horizontal for short outputs on a wide monitor. Use even vertical when each pane needs full terminal width. Use main vertical when one agent or editor needs to stay primary. Use tiled when five or more panes have no clear primary.