Explore Fuchsia

When Fuchsia is booted and displays the $ prompt in the shell, you can now run components. In Fuchsia, components are the basic unit of executable software.

To run components on your Fuchsia device, see Run an example component.

Run shell commands

To shutdown or reboot Fuchsia, use the following dm commands in the shell:

dm shutdown
dm reboot

See Connect to a target shell for more information.

Select a tab

Fuchsia shows multiple tabs in the shell. At the top of the screen, the currently selected tab is highlighted in yellow.

The following keyboard shortcuts help you navigate the terminal:

Alt+Tab switches between tabs.
Alt+F{1,2,...} switches directly to a tab.
- Tab zero is the console, which displays the boot and component log.
- Tabs 1, 2 and 3 contain shells.
- Tabs 4 and higher contain components you've launched.
Alt+Up/Down scrolls up and down by lines.
Shift+PgUp/PgDown scrolls up and down by half page.
Ctrl+Alt+Delete reboots.

Write software for Fuchsia

For an example of writing FIDL APIs and client and server components, review the FIDL tutorials

Run tests

To test Fuchsia on your device, see Run Fuchsia tests.

Launch a graphical component

Most graphical components in Fuchsia use the Scenic system compositor. You can launch such components (commonly found in /system/apps) using the present_view command, for example:

present_view fuchsia-pkg://fuchsia.com/spinning_square_view#meta/spinning_square_view.cmx

See Scenic example apps.

If you launch a component that uses Scenic or hardware-accelerated graphics, Fuchsia enters the graphics mode, which doesn't display the shell. To use the shell, press Alt+Escape to enter the console mode. In the console mode, Alt+Tab has the same behavior described in Select a tab. Press Alt+Escape again to return to the graphics mode.

Contribute changes

To submit your contribution to Fuchsia, see Contribute changes.