Cline vs Roo Code Keyboard Shortcuts
Cline and Roo Code are two of the most popular AI coding agents for VS Code — and they are closely related. Roo Code began as a fork of Cline (originally released as "Roo Cline"), so under the hood they share an architecture, an @-mention system, and even a command namespace. If you know one, you mostly know the other. This guide covers where they line up and where they have diverged.
One thing to set expectations on first: both tools ship deliberately few keyboard shortcuts. They are VS Code extensions, so most of your "shortcuts" are the editor's own keys plus a small handful of extension defaults. The real driving surface is chat — @-mentions, slash commands, and mode switching — not hotkeys. For Cline's complete reference, see the Cline keyboard shortcuts page.
The two tiers of shortcut (read this first)
For both tools, "shortcuts" come in two kinds, and conflating them causes confusion:
- Real VS Code keybindings — registered defaults you can see and rebind in the VS Code Keyboard Shortcuts editor (Cmd/Ctrl + K then Cmd/Ctrl + S). This set is tiny for both.
- In-chat (webview) keys — like the mode toggles below. These work, but they are handled inside the extension's chat panel, so they do not appear in the VS Code keybinding editor and cannot be rebound there.
Default keybindings compared
These are the registered VS Code keybindings each extension ships — the ones you can rebind. There are not many.
| Action | Cline | Roo Code |
|---|---|---|
| Add selected code to chat / context | Cmd + ' / Ctrl + ' | Cmd + K Cmd + A / Ctrl + K Ctrl + A |
| Focus the chat input (no selection) | Cmd + ' / Ctrl + ' | Command, no default key |
| Toggle auto-approve | — | Cmd + Alt + A / Ctrl + Alt + A |
Cline's headline feature is that single dual-purpose key: Cmd/Ctrl + ' focuses the chat when nothing is selected and adds your selection when text is highlighted. Roo splits things differently — its add-to-context lives on a K-chord (deliberately moved off Cmd/Ctrl + Y to stop colliding with VS Code's Redo, so older cheat sheets showing Cmd + Y are out of date), and it adds a real keybinding Cline lacks: a global auto-approve toggle.
Modes compared
This is the biggest functional difference between the two. Cline keeps it simple with two modes; Roo Code has a full multi-mode system plus user-defined custom modes.
| Cline | Roo Code | |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in modes | Plan, Act | Code, Ask, Architect, Debug, Orchestrator (+ custom) |
| Switch by key (in-chat) | Cmd + Shift + A / Ctrl + Shift + A (toggle) | Cmd/Ctrl + . next, Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + . previous |
| Switch by command | Plan/Act toggle in the chat input | /code, /ask, /architect, /debug, /orchestrator |
Both mode-switch keys are the in-chat (webview) kind, so they won't show up in the VS Code keybinding editor. Cline's Plan/Act split maps to a common workflow — plan read-only, review, then act. Roo's modes are more granular and each can have its own tool and file-edit permissions, with Orchestrator delegating subtasks to the others.
@-mentions compared
Because Roo forked Cline, the @-mention systems are nearly identical — type @ in chat to pull something into context. Roo has added a few extra context types.
| Add to context | Cline | Roo Code |
|---|---|---|
| File contents | @file | @file |
| Folder | @folder/ | @folder/ |
| A URL (fetched to Markdown) | @url | @url |
| Problems panel errors | @problems | @problems |
| Last terminal output | @terminal | @terminal |
| Git changes | @git | @git-changes |
| A specific commit | @git (commits) | @<commit-hash> |
| An image | — | @image |
So which keys should you actually learn?
- In Cline: just Cmd/Ctrl + ' (focus / add selection) and Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + A (Plan/Act). Everything else is
@-mentions and slash commands. - In Roo Code: Cmd/Ctrl + K Cmd/Ctrl + A (add to context), Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + A (auto-approve), and Cmd/Ctrl + . to cycle modes.
The honest summary: neither tool is shortcut-heavy, and that's fine — both are designed to be driven by conversation, not chords. If you want the full picture of how these agents compare to the terminal-based tools, see our AI coding CLI shortcuts compared guide.