Command palette: run thread and app actions from search, not only from a shortcut or a click

[Ernest0-Production]

Problem

The command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) is the keyboard way to find things: threads, projects, a handful of actions, settings. It is not the way to do most of the things you do to the current thread, or to the rest of the app.

Pin, settle, archive, snooze, delete, rename live on the thread's right-click menu and the chat-header menu. Settle and pin also have shortcuts (Cmd+Shift+S, Cmd+Shift+P). Archive and snooze have neither a palette row nor a bindable command (thread.archive is still not in the keybinding list). Typing settle or snooze into the palette lands on Settings, not on the action.

The same gap shows up outside the thread menu. Check for updates is a sidebar pill. The terminal, the browser/preview, and a commit are clicks or shortcuts. People who drive the app from the palette — type a few letters, press Enter — cannot reach them without a mouse or a memorized key.

A few current-thread actions are already in the palette (Find in current thread, Copy thread, Link pull request, Share with guest, Restart agent session). That makes the missing ones more surprising, not less.

Proposal

Treat the palette as a command runner for the current context, not only a search box plus a shortcut sheet.

• List the actions that already exist for the current thread — pin/unpin, settle/un-settle, archive, snooze (with the existing duration presets as a submenu), delete, rename — and run the same code the header/sidebar menus already run.
• Do the same for app commands that today are only a click or a shortcut: check for updates, toggle the terminal, toggle the browser/preview, commit.
• Searching for the action should run it on Enter. Configuring its keybinding can stay a separate path (Shift+Enter, or a hint), so the palette does not dump you in Settings.
• Hide a row when it does not apply (no open thread, no orchestration:operate, environment missing the capability), the way the menus already do.

Cursor's command palette already works this way: an Actions list you can search, with Archive, Pin/Unpin, Find in Chat, and so on, each runnable without leaving the picker.

#21444 already implemented the thread-menu half of this: the palette listed the current thread's right-click actions (snooze, settle, pin, rename, archive) by reusing useThreadActionMenu, with submenus for snooze presets and copy. It was closed for lack of an Ideas discussion and an agreed scope, not because the direction was rejected. This discussion is that missing proposal. If the narrower slice is preferred first, #18611 is still open and only adds Settle / Un-settle.

Not included

• Replacing the sidebar or header menus. Those stay.
• A new mobile command palette. This is web/desktop Cmd+K.
• Changing default shortcuts, or adding thread.archive as a default binding. Being able to run the command from the palette is the request; bindable IDs can follow.
• Inventing new thread states or snooze durations. Use the existing menu actions.

Related

• feat(web): command palette runs the current thread's menu actions #21444 (closed) is the conceptual implementation for current-thread menu actions in the palette. Maintainers asked for this Ideas discussion before that kind of PR.
• feat(web): settle the current thread from the command palette #18611 (open) is Settle / Un-settle only.
• Allow running commands directly from the Command-K picker #23105 is adjacent and narrower: when a keybinding row is already in the picker, Enter should run it instead of opening shortcut settings. This request is the missing rows — commands that never appear as runnable actions at all.
• [Feature]: Make thread.archive bindable to a key #27718 asked for thread.archive to be bindable. Palette-runnable archive would cover the same job for people who do not want a shortcut.

Questions

• Is the first slice the current thread's menu (what feat(web): command palette runs the current thread's menu actions #21444 did), with terminal / browser / updates / commit as a follow-up, or should the palette grow toward a full Actions list in one go?
• For commands that already have a keybinding ID (thread.settle, thread.pin, terminal.toggle), should the palette row be the same object as the keybinding command (so Allow running commands directly from the Command-K picker #23105's Enter-to-run falls out naturally), or a separate action item the way Find and Copy thread work today?
• Snooze: one "Snooze thread" submenu with the existing presets, or a searchable row per preset (snooze tomorrow)?

[BrandonNoad]

+1. The two thread actions I want most from the keyboard are rename and snooze. Today both need the mouse. Neither has a bindable command in Settings → Keybindings, and typing either word in ⌘K only matches Settings rows.

Ideally both would be ⌘K actions for the current thread and bindable as shortcuts. The snooze shortcut is also tracked in #16079.