Common things that trip people up, and how to carry on.
Most "uh oh" moments at the terminal aren't broken; they're a key doing something you didn't expect. Here are the common ones.
I pressed Ctrl+C and something stopped. That's
the "cancel" key; your tutor stopped whatever it was doing. Just
type your next prompt and carry on. If the window closed entirely,
type tutor again and your tutor picks up where you left
off.
I pressed Ctrl+V and nothing pasted. At the Git Bash prompt (before your tutor is running), Ctrl+V doesn't paste; use Shift+Insert (or right-click) instead. Once your tutor is running inside the window, Ctrl+V starts working normally for paste.
I pressed Ctrl+Z and Gemini seems to have
disappeared. Ctrl+Z doesn't mean
"undo" in the terminal; it pauses whatever was running. (Different
from how it behaves in a word processor.) To bring Gemini back,
type fg and press Enter. If that doesn't
work, type tutor again; your progress is saved. For
undoing AI changes to your files, use /restore
instead.
I want to wipe what I've typed and start over. Press Esc twice quickly. That clears the line. (A single Esc on its own cancels popups or menus.)
I pressed the Up arrow and my typing got overwritten. The Up arrow scrolls through your past prompts. Press the Down arrow to come back to a blank line, or Esc twice to clear.
The screen looks scrambled or empty. Press Ctrl+L to redraw it. Your conversation is still there; nothing's lost.
Looks stuck, nothing happens when I type. Click into the window first to make it active. If still nothing, press Esc to cancel anything in progress, then try again.
I can't figure out how to quit. Type
/quit and press Enter. Or press
Ctrl+C twice in a row.
The tutor is slow or seems to have lost the
plot. Long conversations cost more memory and eventually
the AI starts forgetting the start (see tokens and context windows on
the Helpful notes page). End the lesson with End lesson;
your progress is saved, and a fresh session tomorrow will be
sharper.
I told the tutor to do something and it did the wrong
thing. First try /restore: it undoes the
last thing the AI changed in your files. Then describe what you
actually wanted, more specifically. (Being specific is half the
whole game; see step 3 of the curriculum.)
I closed the window without saying "End lesson".
Don't panic. Your tutor saves your progress during every
session, not only at the end, so almost nothing is lost. Just
open Git Bash next time, type tutor, and type
Continue learning; your tutor reads its notes and
carries on.
The tutor isn't reading my progress file at the start of
a session. Type Continue learning at the
start of the session. If you've already typed something else and
the tutor seems to have started a new session by mistake, say so:
"You should be reading my progress file; please do that
now."
The tutor is making mistakes I don't know how to fix, or seems to be the thing failing. Message Becky or the WhatsApp group. That's the safety net, by design. Tell us what you were trying to do, what the tutor said, and what you'd expected.
When something feels off and you don't know where to start, the shape of the recovery is always the same:
/restore
undoes the last AI change, and the tutor can take you back to
any earlier save-point.If none of that helps — message Becky.