TL;DR You're watching Claude work and you already know your next two steps. No need to wait for it to finish or cut it off: type them and press
Enter. They queue and run in order the moment the turn ends. Changed your mind about one? The prompt itself tells you, Press up to edit queued messages: hit↑, edit it, or delete it.
A queue that doesn't interrupt
While Claude processes a turn, the prompt stays live. Anything you send with Enter doesn't cut it off, it queues. It shows up as a line above the input and fires on its own when the current turn ends, in the same order you typed it. That's different from interrupting (Esc, which stops it now) and from asking a side question (/btw, which never touches the thread).
What it looks like
* Pontificating… (14s · still thinking with high effort)
└ working on your task
❯ This is the queue ← your message, queued
❯ Press up to edit queued messages
Setup
1. Type while it works and press Enter
Your message doesn't interrupt the running turn: it queues and gets sent on its own once that turn finishes.
2. Stack as many as you want
Queue several in a row. They run in the exact order you sent them, one after another.
3. Manage the queue with ↑
The prompt reminds you: Press up to edit queued messages. Hit ↑ to pull the last queued message back, edit it, or delete it if it no longer applies.
4. When NOT to queue
If you want to change course now, don't queue: interrupt with Esc and redirect, since Claude keeps the work it already did. And if it's a quick question that shouldn't enter the history, ask it with /btw, which works even while Claude is busy.
Reference
| I want to… | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Line up the next instruction | type + Enter |
Queues and runs after the current turn, in order. No interrupt |
| Edit or delete what's queued | ↑ |
Pulls the queued message back to edit or remove it |
| Change course right now | Esc |
Stops the running turn, keeps the work done, you redirect |
| Ask without cluttering the thread | /btw |
Ephemeral side question in parallel, never enters history |
One note: since a queued message is sent when the turn ends, write it self-contained ("add a test to auth.ts") instead of relying on whatever Claude has on screen at that moment.
Official docs: Interactive mode