Zellij has many features that simplify terminal workflows. However, some actions, like quickly opening a new tab running a specific tool, aren’t immediately obvious.

For example, I wanted this behavior:

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+t should open a new tab running lazydocker.

Here’s how to make that happen.

Pane maybe?

Btw - opening lazydocker inside a new pane is easy:

shared_except "locked" {
  bind "Ctrl Alt t" {
    Run "lazydocker" {
    }
  }
}

The complicated bit is about tabs. I am more a tab person rather than a pane one - I use panes rarely, I like my full screens most of the time.

Step 1: Add a Keybinding

Edit your Zellij config file:

// ~/.config/zellij/config.kdl

shared_except "locked" {
  bind "Ctrl Alt t" {
    NewTab {
      layout "/path/to/lazydocker.kdl"
    }
    SwitchToMode "normal"
  }
}

This tells Zellij to open a new tab using a custom layout whenever you press Ctrl+Alt+t.

Step 2: Define the Layout

Create the layout file that runs lazydocker:

// /path/to/lazydocker.kdl

layout {
  default_tab_template {
    pane size=1 borderless=true { plugin location="tab-bar" }
    children
    pane size=1 borderless=true { plugin location="status-bar" }
  }

  tab name="LazyDocker" {
    pane command="lazydocker"
  }
}

Now pressing Ctrl+Alt+t launches LazyDocker in a new tab.

Handling Exit Behavior

By default, when lazydocker exits, you’ll see the "Zellij run command wrapper" screen:

zellij run command wrapper Sometimes that’s useful (for example, when running ssh), but sometimes it’s annoying. You have two ways to handle it:

Option 1 - Close the tab when the process exits:

tab name="LazyDocker" {
  pane command="lazydocker" close_on_exit=true
}

Option 2 - Drop back to your shell instead:

tab name="LazyDocker" {
  pane command="zsh" {
    args "-lc" "lazydocker; exec zsh"
  }
}

Notes and Caveats

You need to detach and reattach your session for layout changes to take effect.
If there’s a syntax error in your layout, Zellij reports it at startup but doesn’t pinpoint the location:
```
Failed to load layout: KdlDeserialization error: Failed to parse Zellij configuration
```

Creating a layout for each tool can feel verbose, but it’s powerful once set up. I later built an FZF-based selector to launch tools like LazyDocker, Yazi, or SSH sessions on demand - that’s a topic for another article.