General

General covers CDE's behaviour, notifications, and app preferences that don't belong under Appearance or Shortcuts, manage them from Settings → Application → General.

Preferences

Setting	What it controls
Language	Display language for CDE's interface
Terminal Shell	The shell used for your integrated terminal; compatible shells are also used for agent tool calls
Show reasoning summaries	Display model reasoning summaries in the timeline
Expand shell tool parts	Show shell tool calls expanded by default in the timeline
Expand edit tool parts	Show edit, write, and patch tool calls expanded by default in the timeline
Show session progress bar	Display the animated progress bar at the top of a session while the agent is working

Browser

Setting	What it controls
Integrated browser agent tools	When off, the agent will not receive integrated browser tools automatically

Notifications and sound

Section	What it controls
System notifications	Separate toggles for Agent (complete or needs attention), Permissions (a permission is required), and Errors
Sound effects	Separate sound choices for Agent and Permissions notifications, defaults to None

Beta features

CDE gates newer, less-stable surfaces behind explicit opt-in toggles here rather than shipping them on by default:

Feature	What it does
Confidential Observe	Shows the Confidential Observe panel in the sidebar for real-time traces, logs, metrics, and AI-powered incident investigation

Beta features can change or disappear across releases, check Settings → Application → General → Beta Features for what's actually available in your version.

Updates

Setting	What it controls
Check for updates on startup	Automatically check for updates when CDE launches
Automatically install updates	Download and install updates in the background when available
Ask before restarting	Confirm before applying a downloaded update; when off, installing an update restarts CDE immediately
Release notes	Show What's New popups after updates
Check for updates	Manual Check now button

See Install for platform-specific update channels.

Display and advanced

Setting	What it controls
Pinch to zoom	Allow trackpad pinch and Ctrl-scroll gestures to zoom
File tree	Show the file tree panel in desktop sessions
Navigation controls	Show the back and forward buttons in the desktop title bar
Command palette	Show the search and command palette button in the desktop title bar
Server status	Show the server status button in the desktop title bar
Custom agents	Show the agent picker in the desktop composer

Next steps

Appearance: theme and font preferences
Shortcuts: keyboard bindings for these toggles' related actions
Confidential Observe: what the beta observability panel does once enabled
Settings overview: the full settings map