keyb

Create and view your own custom hotkey cheatsheet in the terminal

Features

• Lightweight and quick
• Fully customizable
• Fuzzy filtering
• Vim key bindings
• Export to stdout for fzf, rofi support

Non-Features

keyb does not support:

• Auto detection of hotkeys
• Command selection

Motivation

I had trouble remembering the various hotkeys that I sometimes use. It got annoying to look them up so I resorted to writing them down on a paper cheatsheet. Then, I thought: maybe there's a tool that does this better. I didn't find one I liked so I built keyb.

With keyb, I can list:

• Hotkeys that I occasionally forget or am new to
• Custom key combinations that I defined for my own workflow
• Short commands that I sometimes use

It is best used as a popup cheatsheet.

Install

keyb supports Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Compiled Binary

Download a compiled binary from the releases page.

Install with Go

$ go install github.com/kencx/keyb@latest

Build from source

$ git clone https://github.com/kencx/keyb
$ cd keyb
$ make build

Usage

usage: keyb [options] <command>

Options:
  -p, --print     Print to stdout
  -e, --export    Export to file
  -k, --key       Key bindings at custom path
  -c, --config    Config file at custom path
  -v, --version   Version info
  -h, --help      help for keyb

Commands:
  a, add          Add keybind to keyb file

Search

• Enter search mode with / to perform fuzzy filtering on all rows
• Exit search mode again with Esc
• Alt + d clears the current filter

To perform filtering on section headings only, prefix the search with h:. This will return all matching section headings with their respective rows.

Printing

keyb supports printing to stdout for use with other tools:

$ keyb -p | fzf
$ keyb -p | rofi -dmenu

keyb File

keyb requires a yaml file with a list of hotkeys to work. A default file is generated in your system's config directory if no other file is specified.

Hotkeys are classified into sections with a name and (optional) prefix field. When displayed, sections are sorted by alphabetical order while the keys themselves are arranged in their defined order.

- name: bspwm
  keybinds:
    - name: terminal
      key: Super + Return

The prefix is a key combination that will be prepended to every hotkey in the section. A key can choose to opt out by including a ignore_prefix: true field. Prefixes are useful for applications with a common leading hotkey like tmux.

- name: tmux
  prefix: ctrl + b
  keybinds:
    - name: Create new window
      key: c
    - name: Prev, next window
      key: Shift + {←, →}
      ignore_prefix: true

Refer to the examples for more examples.

Multiline fields are not supported!

Quick Add

usage: keyb [-k file] add [app; name; key]

Options:
  -b, --binding  Key binding
  -p, --prefix   Ignore prefix

You can quick add bindings from the command line to a specified file. If -k file is given and exists, the new keybind will be appended to the file. Otherwise, keyb_path defined in config.yml will be used.

$ keyb add -b "kitty; open terminal; super + enter"

When adding a new keybind, the app name, keybind name and keybind must be specified. It is separated by ; and wrapped in quotes (to prevent parsing errors).

Configuration

keyb can be customized with a config file at the default OS config directory (i.e. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/keyb/config.yml). If no such file exists, the default configuration will be used.

See config for all configuration options.

Roadmap

• Ability to customize keyb hotkeys
• a, add subcommand to quickly add a single hotkey entry from the CLI
• Export to additional file formats (json, toml, conf/ini etc.)
• Support multiple keyb files or directories

Contributing

keyb requires Go 1.21. Bug reports, feature requests and PRs are very welcome.

Similar Tools

• showkeys offers a keybinding popup similar to awesomewm
• cheat is a CLI alternative to view cheatsheets for commands and hotkeys for just about any topic
• Refer to shortcut-pages, cheat/cheatsheets for more cheatsheets

License

MIT