Docs · Using Orbit

Opening projects

How Orbit opens projects and workspaces in external editors, terminals, and file managers, and how it picks the app to use.

Orbit does not try to replace your tools. It hands a project folder to an application you already have, but you decide which one. Configuration lives in Settings → Applications, under Code editor and Terminal.

Three ways to choose an application

Auto (default) — Orbit probes a fixed list in order and uses the first application it finds installed.
Preset — pin a known editor or terminal by name. Orbit resolves it at launch time, including Flatpak and Snap wrappers.
Custom — enter an exact command line. Orbit splits it into arguments and launches the process directly.

Open in editor

Presets include Visual Studio Code, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, and Sublime Text. In Auto mode, Orbit checks the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables first — flags are allowed, for example code --wait — then probes code, codium, code-insiders, cursor, windsurf, zed, and subl.

Open in terminal

The terminal is opened rooted at the project path. Presets cover the system default (xdg-terminal-exec), GNOME Terminal, Konsole, Kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, foot, Tilix, Xfce Terminal, and xterm; Auto mode probes them in that order.

Reveal in file manager

Orbit reveals the project or workspace folder using your operating system's default file manager.

Copy path

Copy the absolute path to the clipboard for pasting anywhere else.

Part of the Orbit documentation · v1.0.0