How do I type to the Brain and give it a file or screenshot?

Click into the Brain drawer and start typing. The box takes your text as soon as the drawer opens. Type your request and press Enter to send it. To write more than one line without sending, hold Shift and press Enter (or hold Option and press Enter) to add a line break. To hand the Brain a file, drag it from Finder onto the text box and its location on your Mac drops in for you. To give the Brain a screenshot, copy the image and paste it with Cmd and V, and codus drops in a link to a saved copy. Closing the drawer does not lose your chat: the Brain keeps running in the background, so the next time you open the drawer your conversation is still there.

Before you start

The Brain runs on Claude Code, a free tool from Anthropic that lives on your Mac. If the drawer shows a card headed "Claude Code isn't installed on this machine" instead of a text box, you need to install Claude Code first, then reopen the drawer. Once it is installed you get the terminal this page describes. (There is a separate page on installing Claude Code.)

Type your message

The text box is a terminal, a plain text panel where you type to the Brain. It works like the terminals in your project tabs: you type into it, and the Brain types its reply back into the same panel. It focuses itself the moment the drawer opens, so you can start typing straight away without clicking first.

Type your request in plain English and press Enter. The Brain reads it and starts working, and its reply prints back below what you wrote.

It is keyboard-driven. If the Brain ever shows you a list of choices, move up and down with the arrow keys and press Enter on the one you want. Clicking a choice with your mouse does nothing, so reach for the keyboard.

Write more than one line

This is the one that catches everybody out. In this box, plain Enter sends the message. So if you press Enter to move down to a second line, you send your prompt half-written before you have finished your thought.

To add a line break and keep typing, hold Shift and press Enter, or hold Option (also labelled Alt) and press Enter. Use that every time you want a new line, a new paragraph, or a list. Press plain Enter only when the whole message is ready to go.

Give the Brain a file

You can hand the Brain a file to read. Open Finder, find the file, then click and hold its icon and drag it over the Brain's text box. Let go, and the file's full location on your Mac appears in the box, something like /Users/you/Desktop/report.pdf.

That path is the address of the file, not the file's contents, and it is exactly what the Brain needs to open and read it. Add any words around it, for example "summarise this report", then press Enter.

Give the Brain a screenshot or image

For a screenshot or any picture, copy it first, then paste it. Take your screenshot (or copy an image from anywhere), click into the Brain's text box, and press Cmd and V to paste. codus saves a copy of the image and drops that copy's location into the box, the same kind of path as above. The Brain opens that file to look at the picture. Add your question and press Enter.

How do I know it worked?

When you send a message, the Brain starts printing its reply into the same panel within a second or two.

When you drag in a file or paste an image, a path (a line of text such as /Users/you/Desktop/image.png) appears where your cursor is. If you see that path, the Brain has the file. If nothing appears after you drop a file, the box did not catch it, so drag it directly over the text and let go again.

Your conversation is saved

The Brain keeps running in the background whether or not the drawer is open. Closing the drawer, with the × in its top corner or the brain icon in the top bar, does not end the chat or wipe it. Open the drawer again and your conversation is right where you left it.

The only time you start from a blank slate is the very first time you ever open the Brain. After that it remembers, and a later session carries on from your last conversation.

If the Brain stops

Two messages tell you the Brain is no longer running. Both are the terminal talking to you, not something you did wrong.

• A yellow line reading [brain phase 2] claude exited ... followed by Close + reopen the drawer to restart. means the Brain was running and has stopped.
• A red line starting [brain phase 2] spawn failed: means the Brain could not start at all.

There is no restart button. First, do what the yellow line says: close the drawer with the × in its top corner, then open it again from the brain icon in the top bar. If the message is still there and you cannot type, quit codus completely and open it again. Your conversation is saved either way, and the Brain picks it up where it left off.

If the red "spawn failed" line keeps coming back, Claude Code may not be installed correctly, so check the Claude Code install step in "Before you start".

Common problems

"I clicked in the box and nothing happened." You do not need to click. The box focuses itself when the drawer opens, so start typing. If the Brain shows a list to choose from, use the arrow keys and Enter, because clicking a choice does nothing.

"I pressed Enter to start a new line and it sent my message early." Plain Enter always sends. Hold Shift and press Enter (or Option and Enter) for a new line. See "Write more than one line" above.

"I dragged in a file and only got a path, not the file." That is correct, and it is what you want. The path is the file's address on your Mac, and it is how the Brain finds and reads the file. Press Enter to send it.

"The box shows an exited or spawn-failed line and will not take my typing." The Brain has stopped. See "If the Brain stops" above.