[FEATURE] Desktop: Add a keyboard shortcut to focus the chat composer

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

There is no key that puts focus back into the chat composer in the Desktop app's Code tab. Once focus is anywhere else — the terminal pane, the diff, a folder selection, a menu — the only way back to the input is the mouse.

This is deliberately narrower than #89910, which asks for focus movement between panes as a navigation feature and bundles pane cycling with directional focus commands. This request is only the single most-used case: Get me back to the composer, from wherever I am. It is worth separating because it is independently shippable, it is the one that gets hit dozens of times a day, and the app already does it — Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab (cycle sessions) restores composer focus today. Cycling away from a session and back is a working, if silly, workaround, and it means a dedicated action would largely expose a code path that already exists.

Esc is not available as a substitute here: In this app it stops Claude's response, and it dismisses open dialogs and permission prompts.

Proposed Solution

A dedicated shortcut that moves focus to the chat composer without side effects — no pane toggling, no interrupting a running turn, no dismissing anything. Ideally rebindable, though desktop shortcuts are not currently customizable at all (keybindings.json is CLI-only; #86204 asked for that and was closed as a duplicate of #74655, which covers the submit key specifically).

Alternative Solutions

• Ctrl+Tab twice, to cycle off the session and back. Works, restores focus, but it is a round trip through unrelated state and breaks down with a single session open.
• The mouse. Current answer.

Additional Context

How comparable tools solve this, since the shape of the binding matters more than the specific key:

| Tool | Key | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| OpenCode Desktop | Ctrl+L | Dedicated focus-composer action. |
| Antigravity | Ctrl+I | Dedicated focus action, listed in the app's own settings. |
| Codex | Esc | Focuses the composer; pressing Esc again releases focus. Unavailable while a modal or permission prompt is open, since Esc dismisses it, and while a turn is running, since Esc cancels. |
| VS Code + GitHub Copilot Chat | Ctrl+Alt+I (⌃⌘I on macOS) | Opens and focuses the Chat view, but it is a toggle: Pressing it while the view already has focus closes the panel. |

OpenCode and Antigravity are the shape worth copying: A dedicated chord that does one thing and has no effect when focus is already there. The other two are instructive as cautions rather than models. Copilot's binding is a visibility toggle, which is the exact complaint #89910 opens with — a shortcut that shows and hides a pane is not a shortcut that moves focus to it, and pressing it when you are already in the composer does the opposite of what you wanted. Codex's Esc is ergonomically nicer when it applies, but its exceptions show why it does not fit here: Esc already carries two destructive meanings in this app, so overloading it a third time would make the key's behavior depend on state the user cannot always see.

Findings on OpenCode, Antigravity, Codex, and the Copilot toggle behavior are from my own use of those tools rather than from their documentation. I have not checked VS Code's newer experimental agent surface, which may bind this differently.

Related, listed for triage rather than as duplicates:

• #89910 — pane-to-pane focus navigation as a general feature. Superset; this request is the single action inside it that stands on its own. I confirmed the Windows side of #89910 in a comment there.
• #90739 — selecting the working folder for a new session drops composer focus. One of the specific ways focus is lost, which this request would make recoverable.
• #90736 — a new session inherits the global last-used folder, which is why that folder selection happens so often.
• #80743, #88317 — focus loss and focus trapping in the VS Code extension.

Claude Code Version

2.1.247

Platform

Claude Code Desktop app (Code tab)

Operating System

Windows 11