WORKSPACE

Panels

The panel system is the foundation of every Rift Panel workspace. Panels are organized as a recursive binary tree — split, resize, maximize, and close them to build any layout you need.

Every workspace starts with a single root panel. From there, you split panels to create new ones. Each split divides a panel into two children — either side by side (horizontal split) or stacked (vertical split). This creates a binary tree structure where leaf nodes are the visible panels and branch nodes define the split direction and ratio.

This architecture means there is no fixed grid. You can nest splits to arbitrary depth, creating layouts as simple as two columns or as complex as a dozen panels in a mix of horizontal and vertical arrangements.

Splitting Panels

To split the currently focused panel:

• Ctrl+\ — Split right (horizontal split)
• Ctrl+Shift+\ — Split down (vertical split)

You can also split panels from the context menu (right-click on any panel header) or from the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).

When a panel is split, the existing session stays in the left (or top) child. The new child panel opens empty, ready for a new session. The split ratio defaults to 50/50 but can be adjusted immediately by dragging the border.

Resizing

Drag the border between any two sibling panels to resize them. The cursor changes to a resize indicator when hovering over a panel border. The minimum panel width is 120px and the minimum height is 80px — this prevents panels from collapsing to an unusable size.

Resize operations are smooth and do not interrupt running sessions. Terminal emulators within resized panels automatically reflow their content to match the new dimensions.

Maximizing

Press Ctrl+Shift+M to maximize the focused panel. The panel expands to fill the entire workspace, temporarily hiding all other panels. Press the same shortcut again to restore the previous layout.

Maximizing is useful when you need to focus on a single session — for example, reading a long Claude Code response or reviewing a diff. All other sessions continue running in the background; only the visibility changes.

Context Menus

Right-click on any panel header to open the context menu. Available actions include:

• Split Right — Split this panel horizontally
• Split Down — Split this panel vertically
• Maximize — Toggle maximize for this panel
• Close — Close this panel and its sessions
• Close Others — Close all panels except this one
• Move to New Window — Detach this panel into a separate window