Project profiles and pane identity

Project profiles are reusable launch recipes. A profile is a TOML file that records workspaces, pane names, layout metadata, and optional launch identity for each pane.

Profiles do not save or restore live PTY state. Restoring a profile starts fresh shells or commands in new PTYs; it does not resurrect the shell processes, scrollback, environment, or running programs from an earlier rozi process.

Pane identity

Each pane carries an identity - the information rozi knows about it beyond its live shell:

• Custom title - a name you set with the Shift+N keybinding (or Rename pane in the command palette). It overrides the program's terminal title. Submitting an empty name clears it.
• Profile name - the name a pane was restored with from a profile.
• cwd / command - the local working directory and launch command. Saves use live server runtime metadata, reject remote-host cwd reports, and capture the non-shell executable basename of a command that is still running (a pane idling at its prompt saves no command).

The titlebar shows the custom title if set, then an application-provided terminal title, then the current working directory. A custom or application title is followed by a compact project-qualified path (or the shortened cwd outside a project). Shell prompt titles are reduced to their directory and qualified by the username only after switching away from the original account. See Layouts & panes › Titlebars for the full behavior, and Keybindings for the rename flow.

Capture and launch profiles

Named profiles live in ~/.config/rozi/profiles/<name>.toml. Capture the current session with the Capture session as profile... command in the command palette; it prompts for the profile name and writes that file.

Open its canonical same-name session from the command line:

rozi dev
rozi --session dev

The target attaches when dev is already running, otherwise launches named session dev from the profile. It reports an error rather than silently creating an empty session when neither exists. The profile and session remain independent; the same-name session is only the canonical default binding. Launch the recipe under another name explicitly with:

rozi new review --profile dev

Open Profiles to use the canonical flow with Enter, open the recipe under another name or as an ephemeral session with Ctrl+O, capture a new profile with Ctrl+N, replace the current session with Ctrl+R twice, delete profiles, or toggle one as the ephemeral startup default:

[profile]
default = "dev"

Explicit targets take precedence. On a bare ephemeral launch, [profile] default precedes local session autosave; [session] startup = "last" and = "profile" instead open a named session — the latter the one named after this default. The default also seeds sessions created later in the run, whenever no recipe is named for them. See Named profiles for picker controls.

Replacing a session from the picker is destructive: it closes all panes and running processes, then launches the recipe while retaining the session name and attached clients. A session created from a profile can retain created_from_profile as historical origin metadata. The session picker displays it as from <profile>, and resurrection snapshots persist it; applying a different profile later does not rewrite that origin.

Profile shape

Each profile has a version, the active workspace, and workspace entries. A workspace entry may set name (its custom name, settable at runtime with Rename workspace - see Keybindings) and layout, one of dwindle, master, grid, columns, scrollable, or monocle. Pane entries can use these fields:

• name: pane title shown by rozi and restored on startup.
• cwd: directory used when launching that pane's fresh shell or command. ~ and ~/... expand to HOME.
• command: command line typed into the pane's interactive shell at its first prompt.
• keep_open: kept for round-tripping; a command pane returns to its interactive shell on exit.
• floating: whether the pane is floating instead of tiled.
• fullscreen: whether the pane starts fullscreen.
• rect: floating geometry as { x, y, w, h }; used for floating panes.
• scrollable_width: optional Scrollable column width as a fraction of the tile viewport (default 0.45 when absent; clamped to 0.20–0.80).

Example:

version = 1
active_workspace = 0

[[workspaces]]
index = 0
name = "code"
layout = "dwindle"
focused_pane = 0

[[workspaces.panes]]
id = 0
name = "server"
cwd = "~/code/my-app"
command = "cargo run"
keep_open = true

[[workspaces.panes]]
id = 1
name = "logs"
cwd = "~/code/my-app"

[[workspaces]]
index = 1
layout = "master"

[[workspaces.panes]]
id = 0
name = "scratch"
floating = true
rect = { x = 8.0, y = 4.0, w = 80.0, h = 24.0 }

Command lifetime

A restored pane launches your interactive shell in its cwd. A pane with a command has that command typed into the shell's first prompt, so aliases, shell functions, and rc-file PATH entries resolve exactly as if you ran it yourself, and the pane returns to the prompt when the command exits:

command = "cargo run"

Session auto-save

Beyond explicit profile capture, local rozi launches can auto-save the live layout on quit and restore it on the next launch. Enable it with [session] autosave = true (see Configuration). It reuses the profile format and the same honesty caveats: it restores layout and launch intent, not live PTY state. [profile] default takes precedence over the autosaved session.

For live PTY persistence across detach/reattach, use a named attached session instead. Use rozi attach <name> for attach-only behavior, rozi <name> for attach-or-canonical-profile resolution, or rozi new <name> for explicit creation (see Sessions).

Saving limitations

Saving preserves pane names, workspace layout, split tree/ratios, floating state, fullscreen state, floating geometry, Scrollable pane widths, and each pane's detected local working directory. A cwd reported by a remote host, such as an SSH session, is never saved as a local path; rozi falls back to the pane's original local launch directory instead.

When a pane is running a command at save time, saving records the detected executable basename as command. Interactive shells are filtered out, a pane idling at its prompt saves no command at all (the last command you ran is not replayed), and an explicit launch command is kept when nothing is running. rozi cannot reconstruct the foreground program's original arguments, so a detected nvim process is saved as command = "nvim", not its full invocation. Rename panes explicitly when you want stable profile titles.