Shift + Enter Executes Command Instead of Creating a Newline in Integrated Terminal

[jskorlol]

Hi everyone,

I'm encountering a keybinding issue within the IntelliJ integrated terminal, specifically when I'm using an interactive CLI tool like codex.

My goal is to input a multi-line command. In many other terminal applications, pressing Shift + Enter inserts a newline, allowing me to continue writing the command on the next line.

However, when I press Shift + Enter inside the IntelliJ terminal, it behaves exactly like pressing Enter on its own—it immediately executes the current line as a command.

This makes it very difficult to work with multi-line inputs in tools that require them.

I've already looked through the Settings > Keymap to see if Shift + Enter is bound to a conflicting action, but I couldn't find anything obvious that targets the terminal specifically.

Has anyone else faced this issue? Is there a specific setting in IntelliJ's terminal configuration or a keymap override that I can apply to make Shift + Enter function as a simple newline character?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[cdrx]

I dont think this is JetBrains specific. You'll see the same behaviour if you open codex via the MacOS Terminal app. The shortcut for a new line is ctrl-j.

I would love a way to change this because the muscle memory is strong.

[nkaijala]

Running Claude Code and Codex side by side. Ctrl+J feels impossible. Configurability would be awesome.

[zacharypodbela]

Yea Ctrl+J is a wild design choice. Makes codex fundamentally unusable right now.

[flowerornament]

Running codex inside tmux in Wezterm on Mac. Shift+Enter runs the command. Ctrl+J is my tmux prefix 🤦

[birnam]

Ctrl-j is part of my tmux pane navigation and vim splits navigation (replacing [prefix]+j and C-w+j respectively). Having it for a newline is such a strange choice.

[mvattuone]

Try adding this keybinding to config.keys so Shift+Enter sends a newline.

{
  key = "Enter",
  mods = "SHIFT",
  action = wezterm.action.SendString "\x0a",
}

I haven't run into any conflicts or issues with my setup. 🤷

[joshkellett87]

Really hoping this gets updated, I keep on accidentally submitting half-baked thoughts due to my shift+enter muscle memory.

[piotrborowian]

Please make it Shift + Enter, or configurable. Like everyone else here, I keep submitting half-baked messages which drives me insane. Don't fight our collective muscle memory; ctrl-j is a terrible choice IMHO.

[rwestwood89]

Agreed on it being a wild design decision. But if you are on WSL, here is a workaround that works for me. (And there are probably similar techniques for other terminals).

1. Edit the terminal settings.json

• In a terminal window, "ctrl+," and a window should pop up. Click "Open JSON file" in bottom left

2. Add a binding under "keybindings:"

        {
            "id": "User.sendLF",
            "keys": "shift+enter"
        },

3. Add an action for that keybinding under "actions":

        {
            "command": 
            {
                "action": "sendInput",
                "input": "\u000A"
            },
            "id": "User.sendLF"
        }

So a minimal settings.json could look like:

{
    "$help": "https://aka.ms/terminal-documentation",
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema-preview",
    "actions": 
    [
        {
            "command": 
            {
                "action": "sendInput",
                "input": "\u000A"
            },
            "id": "User.sendLF"
        }
    ],
    "keybindings": 
    [
        {
            "id": "User.sendLF",
            "keys": "shift+enter"
        },
    ]
}
    
    

[Xavierus]

Same, love Codex, especially after new updates, but Ctrl + J feels like learning to play Piano. Please make it adjustable! Or change to Shift - Enter

[bleedingdev-quantum]

Definitely change to Shift + Enter.

[zuuxuux]

You can do this with Alt + Enter (on linux at least)

[zuuxuux]

You can add a new line with Alt + Enter (on linux at least)

[birnam]

I tried this one too, but in Windows Terminal that's the keybinding to toggle between windowed and full screen. I'm not sure if there's an override.

I realized my problem was my tmux keybindings. I have Ctrl + vim movements (h j k l) for changing panes in tmux and vim, so Ctrl-j is 'next pane down'. The terminal and/or tmux was converting my Ctrl-Enter and Shift-Enter attempts INTO a Ctrl-j, because it is ALSO the ASCII keycode for a newline. Which is why Ctrl-j is used here -- it's not some novel weird keybinding choice, it's actually just ASCII.

So for now I'm trying to find the best way to remove the Ctrl-j binding in tmux in panes that are running codex. It's not great though because the codex process is just node, and I run a lot of stuff with node, so my binding is off in a lot of panes now. I still need to work that one out.

But anway. This is the 'why'.

[timothy-web3-dev]

this is unbelievably stupid!!

[Jianhua-Cui]

I've been following this issue for three versions, but it still hasn't been fixed as of v0.47.0.

Apparently, they consider it a feature rather than a bug.

[wojtess]

What is status on this issue?

[ljara2106]

Was wondering about this too, im on a Mac - cant go to next line....should be configurable for us. or at least give us a shortcut.

[cdrx]

The shortcut for a new line is ctrl-j.

[ljara2106]

The shortcut for a new line is ctrl-j.

Ah yes CTRL + J works for mac, thank you sir.

[vzts]

why ctrl + j ....?

[vzts]

come on, don't be apple

[birnam]

It's historical, and because in ASCII Ctrl-J is literally the new line character!

It goes back to the original ASCII definition in 1968 where control characters like 'line feed', 'tab', 'backspace', 'carriage return', 'bell', etc. are among the other alphanumeric characters. ASCII represents characters in 8 bits, were a character like 'A' is 0100 0001, 'B' is 0100 0010, 'J' is 0100 1010, etc.

In the old teletype machines, a Ctrl key was used to type those non-alphanumeric characters. Internally, Ctrl would simply flip the 2nd bit. So while 'J' is 0100 1010, Ctrl-J (sometimes written ^J) turns it into 0000 1010, which is the "line feed" character. Others were like this -- where 'M' is 0100 1101, 'carriage return' is 0000 1101. 'H' is 0100 1000 and 'backspace' is 0000 1000. You might have seen jokes where the beginning of a word is followed by ^H^H^H then a word to replace it. (like somebody was original typing the first word, then thought better of it and deleted what they typed, and replaced it with something 'nicer' --- like I read your poem, it was stup^H^H^H^H sweet) The ^H is literally a backspace key, written out in a readable format.

Ctrl-J was later changed in the original Unix to mean "new line", which incorporates both line feed and carriage return actions. Terminals since then use either ^J or ^M or both, depending on what the systems line break character(s) are. You can see this with a bash command "showkey -a" and hitting Enter. It will almost certainly show you ^J or ^M as the character you entered, and typing a literal Ctrl-j and Ctrl-m gives you the same thing.

[colltoaction]

thanks for an actual answer to "why"

[Wuodan]

Same - liked the background information!

[stefansimik]

Such a shame - this is extremely user-unfriendly behavior to expect users to press wildly unusual Ctrl + J shortcut.
I hate it 😖

[neochief]

Considering that Claude Code does Shift+Enter this just fine, I'd expect the same with Codex. The lack of this shortcut drives me crazy.

[Wuodan]

Upvote for Shift-Enter.

Frankly I don't care about historical reasons here.
Love Codex though!

[kinchungwong]

Related: #3049

This issue might need to be retagged TUI

[nissa-seru]

+1

Potential workaround in Windows using AutoHotkey v2 for folks experiencing issues:

#HotIf WinGetProcessName("WindowsTerminal.exe")
+Enter::^j ;Maps Shift+Enter to Ctrl+J

[mikeCm14]

Please?

[derek-larson14]

Using Warp is a workaround (https://warp.dev) - shift+enter works as expected when running Codex or Claude Code

[chledowski]

If you use Wezterm, this could help:

-- Key bindings
config.keys = {
    ...
    { key = "Enter", mods = "SHIFT", action = act.SendKey { key = "J", mods = "CTRL" } },
    ...
}