Reference
When something's wrong
The failures people actually hit, and what to do about each one.
Start here
csc doctorIt checks authentication, the API, which project you're scoped to, and the
index — and prints a fix for anything broken rather than just naming it. Most
problems below are things doctor will tell you first.
It doesn't know anything about my project
Three causes, in order of likelihood:
- Indexing hasn't finished.
/indexshows progress;/index startforces a pass. A large repository takes a few minutes on first use. - You're scoped to the wrong project.
/statusshows the current workspace and project./scopechanges it. - The project genuinely has no memory yet. New projects start empty.
AGENTS.mdseeds the conventions that matter immediately.
A turn is taking forever
Esc pauses it. Type continue to resume from the current state — completed
edits are kept, so you lose nothing by interrupting.
If turns are consistently slow, check the model with /model. A pinned deep
model is slower by design; /model premium returns to the routed blend.
It keeps asking permission for everything
That's default mode. Answer a prompt with e to trust that kind of command
for this project, or set /permissions auto. See Deciding what runs without
asking.
It made a change I didn't want
/undo. If that's not enough, /worktree next time keeps the whole line of
work on a branch you can throw away.
An agent is stuck
CtrlD → Runs. It's almost always waiting on a permission prompt. Answer it
and the run continues. x twice stops a run outright.
A shortcut does nothing
Terminal multiplexers capture some combinations before the application sees
them — CtrlK and CtrlG most often, under tmux and screen. Every panel has
a slash-command equivalent: /context, /agents, /project view.
Sign-in problems
The browser never opens. On a headless or remote machine there's nothing to
open — csc login prints a URL and a code instead.
It says I'm signed in but calls fail. The credential may have been revoked.
csc logout then csc login.
Costs are higher than expected
/usage breaks the session down by model. The usual causes are parallel
orchestration, deep research, and very long uncompacted sessions. See Credits
and what you're spending.
Nothing here matches
/help <topic> has focused guidance for most areas, and /qa <question>
answers from your workspace's own knowledge. If it's a bug, csc doctor --json output is the useful thing to attach to a report.