Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Quick-query overlay

The quick-query overlay is a Spotlight-style panel that pops up over any app. It’s for short, throwaway questions you don’t want to interrupt your work for — quick lookups, definitions, “how do I…” questions.

Press ⌘⇧Space (default) anywhere on your Mac to open it. Press Esc or click elsewhere to dismiss.

Why it exists separately

Switching to the main Ekorbia window for a 10-second question is friction. The overlay is designed to:

  • Never steal focus from whatever you were doing — the cursor stays where it was
  • Auto-hide on blur — click anywhere outside the overlay and it vanishes
  • Have its own model preference — keep a small, fast model in the overlay and a heavy reasoning model in the main window
  • Stream responses inline — see the answer as it’s generated

The overlay isn’t meant for long multi-turn chats. When a question grows into a real conversation, the “Send to main” button promotes the session into a full chat tab in the main window so you can continue from there.

What’s in the overlay

Top to bottom:

  • Search box / composer — type your question
  • Model picker (small button) — pick which model the overlay uses (separate from the main window’s model)
  • Prompt picker (small button) — attach a single system prompt if you want
  • Send button — fires the query

After you send:

  • The model’s reply streams in below the composer
  • Send to main appears — clicking it opens a new tab in the main Ekorbia window with the same conversation, so you can continue with attachments, edits, etc.
  • Clear — empties the overlay for the next question

Customizing the hotkey

Open Settings → General → Overlay hotkey and click the current shortcut. Press the new combination — it’s recorded immediately. The shortcut is registered globally (works in any app).

Pick something that doesn’t collide with macOS or another app you use. Combinations involving Cmd + Shift + Space (default), Cmd + Option + …, or Cmd + Ctrl + … tend to be safe.

Limitations vs the main window

The overlay is deliberately small:

  • No attachments — no paperclip or folder buttons. If you need file context, use the main window.
  • No multi-turn history — each overlay session is one question, one answer. Send to main if you want to continue.
  • No tabs — only one conversation at a time.
  • No saved files panel — the overlay can’t save files to disk.

Everything in the overlay is in-memory only. Closing it discards the conversation (unless you sent it to main first).