Quick Input text input

Default shortcut: double-tap Control.

Behavior:

1. Trigger Quick Input.
2. A compact pill composer appears near the cursor. For main-agent input, recent main-session messages appear in a lightweight history card above it; scrolling the history makes the card solid until the next presentation. Picky’s Tasks show there as one status line each. A question about handing work to a Pickle has the same Hand to Pickle, Don’t hand off, and Cancel request buttons as in Conversation; when it belongs to your latest request, the card opens on it. An answered question stays as one line, with Open Pickle when it created one.
3. Type a message.
4. Press Return or click the up-arrow send button.
5. Press Escape or click x to close.

Quick Input captures the current context just like voice input.

When a Pickle is armed for screen input, Quick Input names that Pickle in the placeholder, hides main-agent history, and keeps that recipient fixed for the submission. If delivery fails, the draft, recipient, and any drawn ink are restored so you can add more marks and retry. A fresh Quick Input presentation uses the currently armed recipient and never silently reuses an earlier failed target.

After a successful handoff, the Pickle runs independently. The main-agent Stop pill, its Escape double-tap shortcut, and starting another Push-to-Talk input do not cancel that delivered work. Use Stop on the Pickle itself to cancel it. You can still cancel a Quick Input handoff while Picky is capturing or sending it. Pinning a Pickle keeps it selected for future inputs, not attached to the main agent’s cancellation controls.

Quick Input is suppressed while Push-to-Talk or dictation is active, and also while you are mid-rebind in the shortcut editor, so the two input modes do not fight for focus or hijack capture.

Main-agent activity, questions, and cancellation

While the main agent is working, compact activity chips near the cursor show only readable progress: the title of a shell command, memory lookups and saves, web search queries, and {server} MCP for any MCP call. Thinking shows as Thinking… without its content. Other tools stay behind a single Working chip until the reply ends. If the agent calls ask_user_question, Picky opens an interactive cursor-side form. Multi-question requests advance one step at a time; radio and checkbox questions can offer an Other response, and text questions accept free-form input.

An active main turn also shows a Stop pill at the top center of the screen under the pointer. Click it to abort the current turn, or press Escape twice within the confirmation window. Picky suppresses this shortcut while another visible panel owns Escape for its own close/cancel action. During Korean or other IME composition in the question form, Escape is first passed to the input method so it can cancel the marked text instead of dismissing the form.

Tasks and Pickle choices

Picky decides how to handle each request you send it:

• Translations, short checks, and other quick questions get an answer right away.
• Multi-step work, such as finding and editing files, researching several sources, or running a one-off script, runs as a Task in the background. Picky says it started and keeps talking with you meanwhile.
• Production code work (a product bug fix, a feature, a refactor, or building a product project) starts with a question: Hand to Pickle or Don’t hand off. If you don’t hand it off, Picky does it here as a Task. Nothing starts until you answer. If you close the question, it stays pending until you answer it in Conversation or cancel it.
• When you ask for a Pickle directly, such as “hand this to a Pickle”, Picky creates one without asking.

A Task belongs to the main conversation. Its result arrives once Picky is not busy with your current request or a question; if you asked by voice, the short summary is spoken. Interrupting Picky’s reply with Push-to-Talk or Stop does not stop Tasks. Stop a Task from its block or ask Picky to stop it; stopping does not undo files the Task already changed.

In Conversation, each Task is a block that keeps its place while its state changes; while it runs, it shows the elapsed time. Next to its title, the block shows the level Picky picked for it (Fast, Balanced, or Powerful), which decides its model; set the model for each level in Task models (see 13.3). Details shows the instructions, the result summary, files, the checks that actually ran (No verification run when none did), what is blocking it, the model and reasoning level it ran on, and the working folder. Stop ends a running Task and its background jobs; Continue resumes a stopped, failed, blocked, or interrupted Task in the same worker session. A waiting question offers Cancel request, Don’t hand off (Picky does the work here), and Hand to Pickle; if creating the Pickle fails, Retry appears with the error. Once answered, the question stays as one line saying what you chose, with Open Pickle when it created one. Finished Tasks and answered questions leave the conversation with the messages around them; work still running and questions still waiting stay. A new session starts without earlier results.

If a Task finds that the work needs production code changes, it pauses and Picky asks the same question. Hand to Pickle passes the Task’s findings and changed files to a new Pickle; Don’t hand off lets the same Task continue. When Picky quits, running Tasks are marked interrupted. The next time Picky starts, it tells you once which work stopped and offers to continue it. Resume them from their row or ask Picky; they never restart on their own.

Tasks run as separate local Pi processes with the same models, sign-ins, and plugins as Picky. A Task starts in the folder your request is about, or in your home folder when there is none. Tasks are not a sandbox, and MCP servers are not available to them yet.