2. The board and the panel

In this chapter: narrow a busy board down to what matters, and read an issue (description, comments, links, images) without opening Jira. Nothing here writes to Jira yet; that's chapter 3.

Narrow the board

A sprint of sixty cards is a lot. Three ways to see fewer, from quick to precise.

Only yours. m toggles "assigned to me". The assignee filter picks anyone with cards on the board, or Unassigned, and ticks several at once.

Quick filters. The board's own quick filters sit above the cards; 1–9 toggle them, 0 clears every filter at once. Add your own presets under ui.quick_filters in the config and they come first; ui.board_quick_filters: off hides the board's own.

Search. The board's search narrows the loaded cards as you type, without asking Jira again. Plain words match the key, summary, assignee or parent; field:value terms get specific, and every term must hold:

login                  text anywhere on the card
status:review          a field containing a value
assignee:ada,bob       any of several values
points>2 prio>=high    numbers and priorities compare
age>3d is:flagged      in progress over 3 days, and flagged
-label:ui              any term negated

The search reference has every field.

TerminalBrowser

Key	Does
m	mine
a	assignee filter: space or tab ticks several, enter applies
1–9, 0	quick filters, clear all
/	search
F	filter builder

Key	Does
m	mine
A	assignee filter: tab or space ticks several
1–9, 0	quick filters, clear all
f	search (the Filter box)
F	filter builder

Try it: search age>3d on your active sprint. Whatever is left has been sitting in progress for more than three days: a good standup topic.

Tip: can't remember the fields? F opens the filter builder: pick a field, a comparison and a value from lists, and it writes the query for you. Each term shows as a chip; a click removes it.

Arrange it

• Lanes or a list: t swaps them. The list sorts by rank, priority, points, assignee, epic, key, status, updated, due or created; by assignee, priority, epic or status it groups the rows.
• In lanes the same key groups them into swimlanes by assignee, epic or priority. z folds the band under the cursor, Z unfolds them all. } and { jump to the next and previous band, or the list's group.
• c makes cards one line high.
• alt+e hides lanes the filters leave empty, so the rest get the room. Moving a card into one shows it again. ui.empty_lanes: hide starts that way.
• alt+l switches to your own lanes (ui.lane_layouts, arranged with alt+L in the terminal or by dragging in the browser's settings): Test, UAT and Deploy stacked under Done, columns reordered, renamed or hidden. Again goes on to the next layout, then back to the board's columns. z, or a click on a stacked column's header, folds it; Z unfolds them all.

TerminalBrowser

s steps the sort, or the swimlanes. In the list a click on a column header sorts by it, again reverses it, a third time goes back to rank; a header dragged onto another moves its column (ui.list_columns). A folded column keeps its header in place, with a ▸.

O steps the sort, or the swimlanes; in the list C picks the columns, and a click on a column header sorts by it, again reverses it, a third time goes back to rank. Drag a header onto another to move its column, or its right edge to resize it; a double-click on the edge resets it. Folded stacked columns line up under the lane's head; a click unfolds one. The › beside a lane's name collapses it to a thin bar until clicked again.

laneway remembers the mode and swimlanes per board.

Open an issue

enter on a card opens its issue in the panel on the right; tab moves the keys between the board and the panel. The panel shows the fields at the top, then the description, links, subtasks (an epic's child issues, with how many are done), attachments and the activity.

TerminalBrowser

Key	Does
j k, space / b, the wheel	scroll a line, a page
tab / shift+tab	walk the fields
[ ]	activity tabs: comments, history, work log, all
L	open a linked issue, subtask, child, the parent or a web link
backspace	back to the issue you came from
N	your private notes on it, a file on this machine ($EDITOR)
ctrl+a	ask ui.llm (claude -p by default): a summary, acceptance criteria, subtasks, points
/	find text in the issue; n / N step through the hits
i	the issue's images full size
o	open it in the browser
y / Y / ctrl+y	copy the key / the URL / a branch name
esc	close the panel

In kitty or Ghostty images show inline in the panel (inside tmux, with set -g allow-passthrough on); elsewhere as a caption, and i opens them. ui.images: off turns them off.

Key	Does
1 2 3	tabs: details, comments, history (3 again: work log, all)
j k	the next, previous comment
G	go to a linked issue, subtask, child, the parent or a web link
backspace	back to the issue you came from
[ ]	the previous, next issue of the list you came from
N	your private notes on it, edited in place
ctrl+a	ask ui.llm (claude -p by default): a summary, acceptance criteria, subtasks, points
/	find text in the issue; n / N step through the hits
i	the issue's images, larger
o	open it in Jira
y / Y / ctrl+y	copy the key / the link / a branch name
esc	close the panel

The panel owns the keys while it has the focus: its edge lights up and the board's cursor greys. A palette row (ctrl+enter) opens an issue as a page of its own.

Private notes are a plain file beside the state file (notes/ABC-12.md), shared by both; is:notes finds the issues that have them, and they post as a comment when you want to share them (A in the terminal, a button under the notes in the browser).

Try it: open an issue with links and follow one. Follow another from there. The trail shows at the top of the panel; backspace walks it back, one issue at a time.

Tip: < widens the panel and > narrows it, or drag its left border. laneway remembers the width.

Go anywhere

• : opens the palette: every action you can take, the board's views and quick filters, the loaded issues and the ones you opened lately. Type any words to filter. From three letters it also searches all of Jira.
• * pins an issue. Pinned ones come first in the palette.
• The time machine shows the board as it was, a day at a time.
• The closed sprint view shows a past sprint as it closed, with what was done and where the rest carried over to.

TerminalBrowser

Key	Does
#	go to an issue by key, or a pasted Jira URL
ctrl+t	time machine: ← → a day, esc back
ctrl+o	a closed sprint

The palette also searches every issue laneway has read before, in every project, offline too; those hits come last, marked ⌕.

Start laneway in a git branch named after an issue (issue/ABC-12-fix) and it opens that issue; ⎇ ABC-12 in the header opens it again.

Key	Does
g g	go to an issue by key, or a pasted Jira URL
alt+t	time machine: ← → a day, esc back
alt+o	a closed sprint

The palette's first character picks what it searches: : commands, / issues, # JQL. Started in a git branch named after an issue, its first row is ⎇ ABC-12.

Try it: press : and type sprint. You'll see the views, any issue with "sprint" in it, and the actions whose name says sprint, all in one list.

Recap

• m, the assignee filter, 1–9, 0 and search narrow the board; F builds a query.
• t lanes or list; sort, swimlanes and c one-line cards.
• enter opens an issue, links lead on, backspace comes back.
• : goes to anything; the time machine goes back in time.

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