Shortcuts and patterns
There's a small set of moves that, once you learn them, make Pencil feel much faster. None of them are mandatory. All of them compound.
Cmd+K is the front door
⌘K (or Ctrl+K) opens the command palette. From there you can:
- Jump to any product, feature, iteration, task, or bug by name
- Navigate to any top-level page (Features, Tasks, Agents, Costs…) without using the sidebar
- Trigger most actions (create, archive, assign) without leaving the keyboard
If you take only one habit from this page, take Cmd+K. Most experienced Pencil users almost never click the sidebar.
Quick-add
Pressing C on most pages opens a quick-add modal for the right object type. On the Tasks page, C creates a task. On the Features page, C creates a feature. The modal is small on purpose — title and parent only. Edit the rest later.
Tagging in chat
In any chat input, @ opens an agent picker. Pick a name to route the message to that agent. No tag = head agent answers. See Working with your AI team for what to ask agents and what not to.
You can also #-tag a feature, task, or bug — the chip becomes a deep link so anyone reading later can jump to it.
Pinning
Most lists let you pin items to the top. Use this for the two or three things you're actually working on this week — not for anything you "might get to." Pinning is a focus tool, not a bookmark tool. If your pinned list has more than five items, unpin half.
Keyboard map
The bindings that ship by default:
⌘K— command paletteC— quick-add (context-sensitive)⌘⇧B— report an issue?— open this documentationEsc— close any modal, sheet, or dropdown
What to try next
You've read everything. Go open a feature and try writing it up — or jump to the Start here page and pick whichever page sounds most relevant to what you're doing today.