| KITTY.CONF(5) | kitty | KITTY.CONF(5) |
kitty.conf - kitty.conf Documentation
kitty is highly customizable, everything from keyboard shortcuts, to rendering frames-per-second. See below for an overview of all customization possibilities.
You can open the config file within kitty by pressing ctrl+shift+f2 (⌘+, on macOS). A kitty.conf with commented default configurations and descriptions will be created if the file does not exist. You can reload the config file within kitty by pressing ctrl+shift+f5 (⌃+⌘+, on macOS) or sending kitty the SIGUSR1 signal. You can also display the current configuration by pressing ctrl+shift+f6 (⌥+⌘+, on macOS).
kitty looks for a config file in the OS config directories (usually ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf) but you can pass a specific path via the kitty --config option or use the KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY environment variable. See kitty --config for full details.
Comments can be added to the config file as lines starting with the # character. This works only if the # character is the first character in the line.
You can include secondary config files via the include directive. If you use a relative path for include, it is resolved with respect to the location of the current config file. Note that environment variables are expanded, so ${USER}.conf becomes name.conf if USER=name. Also, you can use globinclude to include files matching a shell glob pattern and envinclude to include configuration from environment variables. For example:
include other.conf # Include *.conf files from all subdirs of kitty.d inside the kitty config dir globinclude kitty.d/**/*.conf # Include the *contents* of all env vars starting with KITTY_CONF_ envinclude KITTY_CONF_*
NOTE:
kitty has very powerful font management. You can configure individual font faces and even specify special fonts for particular characters.
font_family monospace bold_font auto italic_font auto bold_italic_font auto
You can specify different fonts for the bold/italic/bold-italic variants. To get a full list of supported fonts use the kitty +list-fonts command. By default they are derived automatically, by the OSes font system. When bold_font or bold_italic_font is set to auto on macOS, the priority of bold fonts is semi-bold, bold, heavy. Setting them manually is useful for font families that have many weight variants like Book, Medium, Thick, etc. For example:
font_family Operator Mono Book bold_font Operator Mono Medium italic_font Operator Mono Book Italic bold_italic_font Operator Mono Medium Italic
font_size 11.0
Font size (in pts)
force_ltr no
kitty does not support BIDI (bidirectional text), however, for RTL scripts, words are automatically displayed in RTL. That is to say, in an RTL script, the words "HELLO WORLD" display in kitty as "WORLD HELLO", and if you try to select a substring of an RTL-shaped string, you will get the character that would be there had the the string been LTR. For example, assuming the Hebrew word ירושלים, selecting the character that on the screen appears to be ם actually writes into the selection buffer the character י. kitty's default behavior is useful in conjunction with a filter to reverse the word order, however, if you wish to manipulate RTL glyphs, it can be very challenging to work with, so this option is provided to turn it off. Furthermore, this option can be used with the command line program GNU FriBidi to get BIDI support, because it will force kitty to always treat the text as LTR, which FriBidi expects for terminals.
symbol_map U+E0A0-U+E0A3,U+E0C0-U+E0C7 PowerlineSymbols
Map the specified Unicode codepoints to a particular font. Useful if you need special rendering for some symbols, such as for Powerline. Avoids the need for patched fonts. Each Unicode code point is specified in the form U+<code point in hexadecimal>. You can specify multiple code points, separated by commas and ranges separated by hyphens. This option can be specified multiple times. The syntax is:
symbol_map codepoints Font Family Name
narrow_symbols U+E0A0-U+E0A3,U+E0C0-U+E0C7 1
Usually, for Private Use Unicode characters and some symbol/dingbat characters, if the character is followed by one or more spaces, kitty will use those extra cells to render the character larger, if the character in the font has a wide aspect ratio. Using this option you can force kitty to restrict the specified code points to render in the specified number of cells (defaulting to one cell). This option can be specified multiple times. The syntax is:
narrow_symbols codepoints [optionally the number of cells]
disable_ligatures never
Choose how you want to handle multi-character ligatures. The default is to always render them. You can tell kitty to not render them when the cursor is over them by using cursor to make editing easier, or have kitty never render them at all by using always, if you don't like them. The ligature strategy can be set per-window either using the kitty remote control facility or by defining shortcuts for it in kitty.conf, for example:
map alt+1 disable_ligatures_in active always map alt+2 disable_ligatures_in all never map alt+3 disable_ligatures_in tab cursor
Note that this refers to programming ligatures, typically implemented using the calt OpenType feature. For disabling general ligatures, use the font_features option.
font_features none
Choose exactly which OpenType features to enable or disable. This is useful as some fonts might have features worthwhile in a terminal. For example, Fira Code includes a discretionary feature, zero, which in that font changes the appearance of the zero (0), to make it more easily distinguishable from Ø. Fira Code also includes other discretionary features known as Stylistic Sets which have the tags ss01 through ss20.
For the exact syntax to use for individual features, see the HarfBuzz documentation.
Note that this code is indexed by PostScript name, and not the font family. This allows you to define very precise feature settings; e.g. you can disable a feature in the italic font but not in the regular font.
On Linux, font features are first read from the FontConfig database and then this option is applied, so they can be configured in a single, central place.
To get the PostScript name for a font, use kitty +list-fonts --psnames:
$ kitty +list-fonts --psnames | grep Fira Fira Code Fira Code Bold (FiraCode-Bold) Fira Code Light (FiraCode-Light) Fira Code Medium (FiraCode-Medium) Fira Code Regular (FiraCode-Regular) Fira Code Retina (FiraCode-Retina)
The part in brackets is the PostScript name.
Enable alternate zero and oldstyle numerals:
font_features FiraCode-Retina +zero +onum
Enable only alternate zero in the bold font:
font_features FiraCode-Bold +zero
Disable the normal ligatures, but keep the calt feature which (in this font) breaks up monotony:
font_features TT2020StyleB-Regular -liga +calt
In conjunction with force_ltr, you may want to disable Arabic shaping entirely, and only look at their isolated forms if they show up in a document. You can do this with e.g.:
font_features UnifontMedium +isol -medi -fina -init
modify_font
Modify font characteristics such as the position or thickness of the underline and strikethrough. The modifications can have the suffix px for pixels or % for percentage of original value. No suffix means use pts. For example:
modify_font underline_position -2 modify_font underline_thickness 150% modify_font strikethrough_position 2px
Additionally, you can modify the size of the cell in which each font glyph is rendered and the baseline at which the glyph is placed in the cell. For example:
modify_font cell_width 80% modify_font cell_height -2px modify_font baseline 3
Note that modifying the baseline will automatically adjust the underline and strikethrough positions by the same amount. Increasing the baseline raises glyphs inside the cell and decreasing it lowers them. Decreasing the cell size might cause rendering artifacts, so use with care.
box_drawing_scale 0.001, 1, 1.5, 2
The sizes of the lines used for the box drawing Unicode characters. These values are in pts. They will be scaled by the monitor DPI to arrive at a pixel value. There must be four values corresponding to thin, normal, thick, and very thick lines.
cursor #cccccc
Default cursor color. If set to the special value none the cursor will be rendered with a "reverse video" effect. It's color will be the color of the text in the cell it is over and the text will be rendered with the background color of the cell. Note that if the program running in the terminal sets a cursor color, this takes precedence. Also, the cursor colors are modified if the cell background and foreground colors have very low contrast.
cursor_text_color #111111
The color of text under the cursor. If you want it rendered with the background color of the cell underneath instead, use the special keyword: background. Note that if cursor is set to none then this option is ignored.
cursor_shape block
The cursor shape can be one of block, beam, underline. Note that when reloading the config this will be changed only if the cursor shape has not been set by the program running in the terminal. This sets the default cursor shape, applications running in the terminal can override it. In particular, shell integration in kitty sets the cursor shape to beam at shell prompts. You can avoid this by setting shell_integration to no-cursor.
cursor_beam_thickness 1.5
The thickness of the beam cursor (in pts).
cursor_underline_thickness 2.0
The thickness of the underline cursor (in pts).
cursor_blink_interval -1
The interval to blink the cursor (in seconds). Set to zero to disable blinking. Negative values mean use system default. Note that the minimum interval will be limited to repaint_delay.
cursor_stop_blinking_after 15.0
Stop blinking cursor after the specified number of seconds of keyboard inactivity. Set to zero to never stop blinking.
scrollback_lines 2000
Number of lines of history to keep in memory for scrolling back. Memory is allocated on demand. Negative numbers are (effectively) infinite scrollback. Note that using very large scrollback is not recommended as it can slow down performance of the terminal and also use large amounts of RAM. Instead, consider using scrollback_pager_history_size. Note that on config reload if this is changed it will only affect newly created windows, not existing ones.
scrollback_pager less --chop-long-lines --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS +INPUT_LINE_NUMBER
Program with which to view scrollback in a new window. The scrollback buffer is passed as STDIN to this program. If you change it, make sure the program you use can handle ANSI escape sequences for colors and text formatting. INPUT_LINE_NUMBER in the command line above will be replaced by an integer representing which line should be at the top of the screen. Similarly CURSOR_LINE and CURSOR_COLUMN will be replaced by the current cursor position or set to 0 if there is no cursor, for example, when showing the last command output.
scrollback_pager_history_size 0
Separate scrollback history size (in MB), used only for browsing the scrollback buffer with pager. This separate buffer is not available for interactive scrolling but will be piped to the pager program when viewing scrollback buffer in a separate window. The current implementation stores the data in UTF-8, so approximatively 10000 lines per megabyte at 100 chars per line, for pure ASCII, unformatted text. A value of zero or less disables this feature. The maximum allowed size is 4GB. Note that on config reload if this is changed it will only affect newly created windows, not existing ones.
scrollback_fill_enlarged_window no
Fill new space with lines from the scrollback buffer after enlarging a window.
wheel_scroll_multiplier 5.0
Multiplier for the number of lines scrolled by the mouse wheel. Note that this is only used for low precision scrolling devices, not for high precision scrolling devices on platforms such as macOS and Wayland. Use negative numbers to change scroll direction. See also wheel_scroll_min_lines.
wheel_scroll_min_lines 1
The minimum number of lines scrolled by the mouse wheel. The scroll multiplier only takes effect after it reaches this number. Note that this is only used for low precision scrolling devices like wheel mice that scroll by very small amounts when using the wheel. With a negative number, the minimum number of lines will always be added.
touch_scroll_multiplier 1.0
Multiplier for the number of lines scrolled by a touchpad. Note that this is only used for high precision scrolling devices on platforms such as macOS and Wayland. Use negative numbers to change scroll direction.
mouse_hide_wait 3.0
Hide mouse cursor after the specified number of seconds of the mouse not being used. Set to zero to disable mouse cursor hiding. Set to a negative value to hide the mouse cursor immediately when typing text. Disabled by default on macOS as getting it to work robustly with the ever-changing sea of bugs that is Cocoa is too much effort.
url_color #0087bd url_style curly
The color and style for highlighting URLs on mouse-over. url_style can be one of: none, straight, double, curly, dotted, dashed.
open_url_with default
The program to open clicked URLs. The special value default with first look for any URL handlers defined via the Scripting the mouse click facility and if non are found, it will use the Operating System's default URL handler (open on macOS and xdg-open on Linux).
url_prefixes file ftp ftps gemini git gopher http https irc ircs kitty mailto news sftp ssh
The set of URL prefixes to look for when detecting a URL under the mouse cursor.
detect_urls yes
Detect URLs under the mouse. Detected URLs are highlighted with an underline and the mouse cursor becomes a hand over them. Even if this option is disabled, URLs are still clickable.
url_excluded_characters
Additional characters to be disallowed from URLs, when detecting URLs under the mouse cursor. By default, all characters that are legal in URLs are allowed.
copy_on_select no
Copy to clipboard or a private buffer on select. With this set to clipboard, selecting text with the mouse will cause the text to be copied to clipboard. Useful on platforms such as macOS that do not have the concept of primary selection. You can instead specify a name such as a1 to copy to a private kitty buffer. Map a shortcut with the paste_from_buffer action to paste from this private buffer. For example:
copy_on_select a1 map shift+cmd+v paste_from_buffer a1
Note that copying to the clipboard is a security risk, as all programs, including websites open in your browser can read the contents of the system clipboard.
paste_actions quote-urls-at-prompt
A comma separated list of actions to take when pasting text into the terminal. The supported paste actions are:
strip_trailing_spaces never
Remove spaces at the end of lines when copying to clipboard. A value of smart will do it when using normal selections, but not rectangle selections. A value of always will always do it.
select_by_word_characters @-./_~?&=%+#
Characters considered part of a word when double clicking. In addition to these characters any character that is marked as an alphanumeric character in the Unicode database will be matched.
select_by_word_characters_forward
Characters considered part of a word when extending the selection forward on double clicking. In addition to these characters any character that is marked as an alphanumeric character in the Unicode database will be matched.
If empty (default) select_by_word_characters will be used for both directions.
click_interval -1.0
The interval between successive clicks to detect double/triple clicks (in seconds). Negative numbers will use the system default instead, if available, or fallback to 0.5.
focus_follows_mouse no
Set the active window to the window under the mouse when moving the mouse around.
pointer_shape_when_grabbed arrow
The shape of the mouse pointer when the program running in the terminal grabs the mouse. Valid values are: arrow, beam and hand.
default_pointer_shape beam
The default shape of the mouse pointer. Valid values are: arrow, beam and hand.
pointer_shape_when_dragging beam
The default shape of the mouse pointer when dragging across text. Valid values are: arrow, beam and hand.
Mouse buttons can be mapped to perform arbitrary actions. The syntax is:
mouse_map button-name event-type modes action
Where button-name is one of left, middle, right, b1 ... b8 with added keyboard modifiers. For example: ctrl+shift+left refers to holding the Ctrl+Shift keys while clicking with the left mouse button. The value b1 ... b8 can be used to refer to up to eight buttons on a mouse.
event-type is one of press, release, doublepress, triplepress, click, doubleclick. modes indicates whether the action is performed when the mouse is grabbed by the program running in the terminal, or not. The values are grabbed or ungrabbed or a comma separated combination of them. grabbed refers to when the program running in the terminal has requested mouse events. Note that the click and double click events have a delay of click_interval to disambiguate from double and triple presses.
You can run kitty with the kitty --debug-input command line option to see mouse events. See the builtin actions below to get a sense of what is possible.
If you want to unmap an action, map it to no_op. For example, to disable opening of URLs with a plain click:
mouse_map left click ungrabbed no_op
See all the mappable actions including mouse actions here.
NOTE:
clear_all_mouse_actions no
Remove all mouse action definitions up to this point. Useful, for instance, to remove the default mouse actions.
mouse_map left click ungrabbed mouse_handle_click selection link prompt
First check for a selection and if one exists do nothing. Then check for a link under the mouse cursor and if one exists, click it. Finally check if the click happened at the current shell prompt and if so, move the cursor to the click location. Note that this requires shell integration to work.
mouse_map shift+left click grabbed,ungrabbed mouse_handle_click selection link prompt
Same as above, except that the action is performed even when the mouse is grabbed by the program running in the terminal.
mouse_map ctrl+shift+left release grabbed,ungrabbed mouse_handle_click link
Variant with Ctrl+Shift is present because the simple click based version has an unavoidable delay of click_interval, to disambiguate clicks from double clicks.
mouse_map ctrl+shift+left press grabbed discard_event
Prevent this press event from being sent to the program that has grabbed the mouse, as the corresponding release event is used to open a URL.
mouse_map middle release ungrabbed paste_from_selection
mouse_map left press ungrabbed mouse_selection normal
mouse_map ctrl+alt+left press ungrabbed mouse_selection rectangle
mouse_map left doublepress ungrabbed mouse_selection word
mouse_map left triplepress ungrabbed mouse_selection line
mouse_map ctrl+alt+left triplepress ungrabbed mouse_selection line_from_point
Select from the clicked point to the end of the line.
mouse_map right press ungrabbed mouse_selection extend
If you want only the end of the selection to be moved instead of the nearest boundary, use move-end instead of extend.
mouse_map shift+middle release ungrabbed,grabbed paste_selection mouse_map shift+middle press grabbed discard_event
mouse_map shift+left press ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection normal
mouse_map ctrl+shift+alt+left press ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection rectangle
mouse_map shift+left doublepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection word
mouse_map shift+left triplepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection line
mouse_map ctrl+shift+alt+left triplepress ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection line_from_point
Select from the clicked point to the end of the line even when grabbed.
mouse_map shift+right press ungrabbed,grabbed mouse_selection extend
mouse_map ctrl+shift+right press ungrabbed mouse_show_command_output
Requires shell integration to work.
repaint_delay 10
Delay between screen updates (in milliseconds). Decreasing it, increases frames-per-second (FPS) at the cost of more CPU usage. The default value yields ~100 FPS which is more than sufficient for most uses. Note that to actually achieve 100 FPS, you have to either set sync_to_monitor to no or use a monitor with a high refresh rate. Also, to minimize latency when there is pending input to be processed, this option is ignored.
input_delay 3
Delay before input from the program running in the terminal is processed (in milliseconds). Note that decreasing it will increase responsiveness, but also increase CPU usage and might cause flicker in full screen programs that redraw the entire screen on each loop, because kitty is so fast that partial screen updates will be drawn.
sync_to_monitor yes
Sync screen updates to the refresh rate of the monitor. This prevents screen tearing when scrolling. However, it limits the rendering speed to the refresh rate of your monitor. With a very high speed mouse/high keyboard repeat rate, you may notice some slight input latency. If so, set this to no.
enable_audio_bell yes
The audio bell. Useful to disable it in environments that require silence.
visual_bell_duration 0.0
The visual bell duration (in seconds). Flash the screen when a bell occurs for the specified number of seconds. Set to zero to disable.
visual_bell_color none
The color used by visual bell. Set to none will fall back to selection background color. If you feel that the visual bell is too bright, you can set it to a darker color.
window_alert_on_bell yes
Request window attention on bell. Makes the dock icon bounce on macOS or the taskbar flash on linux.
bell_on_tab "🔔 "
Some text or a Unicode symbol to show on the tab if a window in the tab that does not have focus has a bell. If you want to use leading or trailing spaces, surround the text with quotes. See tab_title_template for how this is rendered.
For backwards compatibility, values of yes, y and true are converted to the default bell symbol and no, n, false and none are converted to the empty string.
command_on_bell none
Program to run when a bell occurs. The environment variable KITTY_CHILD_CMDLINE can be used to get the program running in the window in which the bell occurred.
bell_path none
Path to a sound file to play as the bell sound. If set to none, the system default bell sound is used. Must be in a format supported by the operating systems sound API, such as WAV or OGA on Linux (libcanberra) or AIFF, MP3 or WAV on macOS (NSSound)
remember_window_size yes initial_window_width 640 initial_window_height 400
If enabled, the window size will be remembered so that new instances of kitty will have the same size as the previous instance. If disabled, the window will initially have size configured by initial_window_width/height, in pixels. You can use a suffix of "c" on the width/height values to have them interpreted as number of cells instead of pixels.
enabled_layouts *
The enabled window layouts. A comma separated list of layout names. The special value all means all layouts. The first listed layout will be used as the startup layout. Default configuration is all layouts in alphabetical order. For a list of available layouts, see the Layouts.
window_resize_step_cells 2 window_resize_step_lines 2
The step size (in units of cell width/cell height) to use when resizing kitty windows in a layout with the shortcut ctrl+shift+r. The cells value is used for horizontal resizing, and the lines value is used for vertical resizing.
window_border_width 0.5pt
The width of window borders. Can be either in pixels (px) or pts (pt). Values in pts will be rounded to the nearest number of pixels based on screen resolution. If not specified, the unit is assumed to be pts. Note that borders are displayed only when more than one window is visible. They are meant to separate multiple windows.
draw_minimal_borders yes
Draw only the minimum borders needed. This means that only the borders that separate the inactive window from a neighbor are drawn. Note that setting a non-zero window_margin_width overrides this and causes all borders to be drawn.
window_margin_width 0
The window margin (in pts) (blank area outside the border). A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.
single_window_margin_width -1
The window margin to use when only a single window is visible (in pts). Negative values will cause the value of window_margin_width to be used instead. A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.
window_padding_width 0
The window padding (in pts) (blank area between the text and the window border). A single value sets all four sides. Two values set the vertical and horizontal sides. Three values set top, horizontal and bottom. Four values set top, right, bottom and left.
placement_strategy center
When the window size is not an exact multiple of the cell size, the cell area of the terminal window will have some extra padding on the sides. You can control how that padding is distributed with this option. Using a value of center means the cell area will be placed centrally. A value of top-left means the padding will be only at the bottom and right edges.
active_border_color #00ff00
The color for the border of the active window. Set this to none to not draw borders around the active window.
inactive_border_color #cccccc
The color for the border of inactive windows.
bell_border_color #ff5a00
The color for the border of inactive windows in which a bell has occurred.
inactive_text_alpha 1.0
Fade the text in inactive windows by the specified amount (a number between zero and one, with zero being fully faded).
hide_window_decorations no
Hide the window decorations (title-bar and window borders) with yes. On macOS, titlebar-only can be used to only hide the titlebar. Whether this works and exactly what effect it has depends on the window manager/operating system. Note that the effects of changing this option when reloading config are undefined.
window_logo_path none
Path to a logo image. Must be in PNG format. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the kitty config directory. The logo is displayed in a corner of every kitty window. The position is controlled by window_logo_position. Individual windows can be configured to have different logos either using the launch action or the remote control facility.
window_logo_position bottom-right
Where to position the window logo in the window. The value can be one of: top-left, top, top-right, left, center, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right.
window_logo_alpha 0.5
The amount the logo should be faded into the background. With zero being fully faded and one being fully opaque.
resize_debounce_time 0.1
The time to wait before redrawing the screen when a resize event is received (in seconds). On platforms such as macOS, where the operating system sends events corresponding to the start and end of a resize, this number is ignored.
resize_draw_strategy static
Choose how kitty draws a window while a resize is in progress. A value of static means draw the current window contents, mostly unchanged. A value of scale means draw the current window contents scaled. A value of blank means draw a blank window. A value of size means show the window size in cells.
resize_in_steps no
Resize the OS window in steps as large as the cells, instead of with the usual pixel accuracy. Combined with initial_window_width and initial_window_height in number of cells, this option can be used to keep the margins as small as possible when resizing the OS window. Note that this does not currently work on Wayland.
visual_window_select_characters 1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
The list of characters for visual window selection. For example, for selecting a window to focus on with ctrl+shift+f7. The value should be a series of unique numbers or alphabets, case insensitive, from the set [0-9A-Z]. Specify your preference as a string of characters.
confirm_os_window_close -1
Ask for confirmation when closing an OS window or a tab with at least this number of kitty windows in it by window manager (e.g. clicking the window close button or pressing the operating system shortcut to close windows) or by the close_tab action. A value of zero disables confirmation. This confirmation also applies to requests to quit the entire application (all OS windows, via the quit action). Negative values are converted to positive ones, however, with shell_integration enabled, using negative values means windows sitting at a shell prompt are not counted, only windows where some command is currently running. Note that if you want confirmation when closing individual windows, you can map the close_window_with_confirmation action.
tab_bar_edge bottom
The edge to show the tab bar on, top or bottom.
tab_bar_margin_width 0.0
The margin to the left and right of the tab bar (in pts).
tab_bar_margin_height 0.0 0.0
The margin above and below the tab bar (in pts). The first number is the margin between the edge of the OS Window and the tab bar. The second number is the margin between the tab bar and the contents of the current tab.
tab_bar_style fade
The tab bar style, can be one of:
tab_bar_align left
The horizontal alignment of the tab bar, can be one of: left, center, right.
tab_bar_min_tabs 2
The minimum number of tabs that must exist before the tab bar is shown.
tab_switch_strategy previous
The algorithm to use when switching to a tab when the current tab is closed. The default of previous will switch to the last used tab. A value of left will switch to the tab to the left of the closed tab. A value of right will switch to the tab to the right of the closed tab. A value of last will switch to the right-most tab.
tab_fade 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
Control how each tab fades into the background when using fade for the tab_bar_style. Each number is an alpha (between zero and one) that controls how much the corresponding cell fades into the background, with zero being no fade and one being full fade. You can change the number of cells used by adding/removing entries to this list.
tab_separator " ┇"
The separator between tabs in the tab bar when using separator as the tab_bar_style.
tab_powerline_style angled
The powerline separator style between tabs in the tab bar when using powerline as the tab_bar_style, can be one of: angled, slanted, round.
tab_activity_symbol none
Some text or a Unicode symbol to show on the tab if a window in the tab that does not have focus has some activity. If you want to use leading or trailing spaces, surround the text with quotes. See tab_title_template for how this is rendered.
tab_title_template "{fmt.fg.red}{bell_symbol}{activity_symbol}{fmt.fg.tab}{title}"
A template to render the tab title. The default just renders the title with optional symbols for bell and activity. If you wish to include the tab-index as well, use something like: {index}:{title}. Useful if you have shortcuts mapped for goto_tab N. If you prefer to see the index as a superscript, use {sup.index}. All data available is:
Note that formatting is done by Python's string formatting machinery, so you can use, for instance, {layout_name[:2].upper()} to show only the first two letters of the layout name, upper-cased. If you want to style the text, you can use styling directives, for example: {fmt.fg.red}red{fmt.fg.tab}normal{fmt.bg._00FF00}greenbg{fmt.bg.tab}. Similarly, for bold and italic: {fmt.bold}bold{fmt.nobold}normal{fmt.italic}italic{fmt.noitalic}. Note that for backward compatibility, if {bell_symbol} or {activity_symbol} are not present in the template, they are prepended to it.
active_tab_title_template none
Template to use for active tabs. If not specified falls back to tab_title_template.
active_tab_foreground #000 active_tab_background #eee active_tab_font_style bold-italic inactive_tab_foreground #444 inactive_tab_background #999 inactive_tab_font_style normal
Tab bar colors and styles.
tab_bar_background none
Background color for the tab bar. Defaults to using the terminal background color.
tab_bar_margin_color none
Color for the tab bar margin area. Defaults to using the terminal background color.
foreground #dddddd background #000000
The foreground and background colors.
background_opacity 1.0
The opacity of the background. A number between zero and one, where one is opaque and zero is fully transparent. This will only work if supported by the OS (for instance, when using a compositor under X11). Note that it only sets the background color's opacity in cells that have the same background color as the default terminal background, so that things like the status bar in vim, powerline prompts, etc. still look good. But it means that if you use a color theme with a background color in your editor, it will not be rendered as transparent. Instead you should change the default background color in your kitty config and not use a background color in the editor color scheme. Or use the escape codes to set the terminals default colors in a shell script to launch your editor. Be aware that using a value less than 1.0 is a (possibly significant) performance hit. If you want to dynamically change transparency of windows, set dynamic_background_opacity to yes (this is off by default as it has a performance cost). Changing this option when reloading the config will only work if dynamic_background_opacity was enabled in the original config.
background_image none
Path to a background image. Must be in PNG format.
background_image_layout tiled
Whether to tile, scale or clamp the background image. The value can be one of tiled, mirror-tiled, scaled, clamped or centered.
background_image_linear no
When background image is scaled, whether linear interpolation should be used.
dynamic_background_opacity no
Allow changing of the background_opacity dynamically, using either keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+shift+a>m and ctrl+shift+a>l) or the remote control facility. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
background_tint 0.0
How much to tint the background image by the background color. This option makes it easier to read the text. Tinting is done using the current background color for each window. This option applies only if background_opacity is set and transparent windows are supported or background_image is set.
dim_opacity 0.75
How much to dim text that has the DIM/FAINT attribute set. One means no dimming and zero means fully dimmed (i.e. invisible).
selection_foreground #000000 selection_background #fffacd
The foreground and background colors for text selected with the mouse. Setting both of these to none will cause a "reverse video" effect for selections, where the selection will be the cell text color and the text will become the cell background color. Setting only selection_foreground to none will cause the foreground color to be used unchanged. Note that these colors can be overridden by the program running in the terminal.
The 256 terminal colors. There are 8 basic colors, each color has a dull and bright version, for the first 16 colors. You can set the remaining 240 colors as color16 to color255.
color0 #000000 color8 #767676
black
color1 #cc0403 color9 #f2201f
red
color2 #19cb00 color10 #23fd00
green
color3 #cecb00 color11 #fffd00
yellow
color4 #0d73cc color12 #1a8fff
blue
color5 #cb1ed1 color13 #fd28ff
magenta
color6 #0dcdcd color14 #14ffff
cyan
color7 #dddddd color15 #ffffff
white
mark1_foreground black
Color for marks of type 1
mark1_background #98d3cb
Color for marks of type 1 (light steel blue)
mark2_foreground black
Color for marks of type 2
mark2_background #f2dcd3
Color for marks of type 1 (beige)
mark3_foreground black
Color for marks of type 3
mark3_background #f274bc
Color for marks of type 3 (violet)
shell .
The shell program to execute. The default value of . means to use whatever shell is set as the default shell for the current user. Note that on macOS if you change this, you might need to add --login and --interactive to ensure that the shell starts in interactive mode and reads its startup rc files.
editor .
The terminal based text editor (such as vim or nano) to use when editing the kitty config file or similar tasks.
The default value of . means to use the environment variables VISUAL and EDITOR in that order. If these variables aren't set, kitty will run your shell ($SHELL -l -i -c env) to see if your shell startup rc files set VISUAL or EDITOR. If that doesn't work, kitty will cycle through various known editors (vim, emacs, etc.) and take the first one that exists on your system.
close_on_child_death no
Close the window when the child process (shell) exits. With the default value no, the terminal will remain open when the child exits as long as there are still processes outputting to the terminal (for example disowned or backgrounded processes). When enabled with yes, the window will close as soon as the child process exits. Note that setting it to yes means that any background processes still using the terminal can fail silently because their stdout/stderr/stdin no longer work.
remote_control_password
Allow other programs to control kitty using passwords. This option can be specified multiple times to add multiple passwords. If no passwords are present kitty will ask the user for permission if a program tries to use remote control with a password. A password can also optionally be associated with a set of allowed remote control actions. For example:
remote_control_password "my passphrase" get-colors set-colors focus-window focus-tab
Only the specified actions will be allowed when using this password. Glob patterns can be used too, for example:
remote_control_password "my passphrase" set-tab-* resize-*
To get a list of available actions, run:
kitty @ --help
A set of actions to be allowed when no password is sent can be specified by using an empty password, for example:
remote_control_password "" *-colors
Finally, the path to a python module can be specified that provides a function is_cmd_allowed that is used to check every remote control command. See Customizing authorization with your own program for details. For example:
remote_control_password "my passphrase" my_rc_command_checker.py
Relative paths are resolved from the kitty configuration directory.
allow_remote_control no
Allow other programs to control kitty. If you turn this on, other programs can control all aspects of kitty, including sending text to kitty windows, opening new windows, closing windows, reading the content of windows, etc. Note that this even works over SSH connections. The default setting of no prevents any form of remote control. The meaning of the various values are:
listen_on none
Listen to the specified UNIX socket for remote control connections. Note that this will apply to all kitty instances. It can be overridden by the kitty --listen-on command line option, which also supports listening on a TCP socket. This option accepts only UNIX sockets, such as unix:${TEMP}/mykitty or unix:@mykitty (on Linux). Environment variables are expanded and relative paths are resolved with respect to the temporary directory. If {kitty_pid} is present, then it is replaced by the PID of the kitty process, otherwise the PID of the kitty process is appended to the value, with a hyphen. See the help for kitty --listen-on for more details. Note that this will be ignored unless allow_remote_control is set to either: yes, socket or socket-only. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
env
Specify the environment variables to be set in all child processes. Using the name with an equal sign (e.g. env VAR=) will set it to the empty string. Specifying only the name (e.g. env VAR) will remove the variable from the child process' environment. Note that environment variables are expanded recursively, for example:
env VAR1=a
env VAR2=${HOME}/${VAR1}/b
The value of VAR2 will be <path to home directory>/a/b.
watcher
Path to python file which will be loaded for Watching launched windows. Can be specified more than once to load multiple watchers. The watchers will be added to every kitty window. Relative paths are resolved relative to the kitty config directory. Note that reloading the config will only affect windows created after the reload.
exe_search_path
Control where kitty finds the programs to run. The default search order is: First search the system wide PATH, then ~/.local/bin and ~/bin. If still not found, the PATH defined in the login shell after sourcing all its startup files is tried. Finally, if present, the PATH specified by the env option is tried.
This option allows you to prepend, append, or remove paths from this search order. It can be specified multiple times for multiple paths. A simple path will be prepended to the search order. A path that starts with the + sign will be append to the search order, after ~/bin above. A path that starts with the - sign will be removed from the entire search order. For example:
exe_search_path /some/prepended/path exe_search_path +/some/appended/path exe_search_path -/some/excluded/path
update_check_interval 24
The interval to periodically check if an update to kitty is available (in hours). If an update is found, a system notification is displayed informing you of the available update. The default is to check every 24 hours, set to zero to disable. Update checking is only done by the official binary builds. Distro packages or source builds do not do update checking. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
startup_session none
Path to a session file to use for all kitty instances. Can be overridden by using the kitty --session command line option for individual instances. See Startup Sessions in the kitty documentation for details. Note that relative paths are interpreted with respect to the kitty config directory. Environment variables in the path are expanded. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
clipboard_control write-clipboard write-primary read-clipboard-ask read-primary-ask
Allow programs running in kitty to read and write from the clipboard. You can control exactly which actions are allowed. The possible actions are: write-clipboard, read-clipboard, write-primary, read-primary, read-clipboard-ask, read-primary-ask. The default is to allow writing to the clipboard and primary selection and to ask for permission when a program tries to read from the clipboard. Note that disabling the read confirmation is a security risk as it means that any program, even the ones running on a remote server via SSH can read your clipboard. See also clipboard_max_size.
clipboard_max_size 64
The maximum size (in MB) of data from programs running in kitty that will be stored for writing to the system clipboard. A value of zero means no size limit is applied. See also clipboard_control.
file_transfer_confirmation_bypass
The password that can be supplied to the file transfer kitten to skip the transfer confirmation prompt. This should only be used when initiating transfers from trusted computers, over trusted networks or encrypted transports, as it allows any programs running on the remote machine to read/write to the local filesystem, without permission.
allow_hyperlinks yes
Process hyperlink escape sequences (OSC 8). If disabled OSC 8 escape sequences are ignored. Otherwise they become clickable links, that you can click with the mouse or by using the hints kitten. The special value of ask means that kitty will ask before opening the link when clicked.
shell_integration enabled
Enable shell integration on supported shells. This enables features such as jumping to previous prompts, browsing the output of the previous command in a pager, etc. on supported shells. Set to disabled to turn off shell integration, completely. It is also possible to disable individual features, set to a space separated list of these values: no-rc, no-cursor, no-title, no-cwd, no-prompt-mark, no-complete. See Shell integration for details.
allow_cloning ask
Control whether programs running in the terminal can request new windows to be created. The canonical example is clone-in-kitty. By default, kitty will ask for permission for each clone request. Allowing cloning unconditionally gives programs running in the terminal (including over SSH) permission to execute arbitrary code, as the user who is running the terminal, on the computer that the terminal is running on.
clone_source_strategies venv,conda,env_var,path
Control what shell code is sourced when running clone-in-kitty in the newly cloned window. The supported strategies are:
This option must be a comma separated list of the above values. This only source the first valid one in the above order.
term xterm-kitty
The value of the TERM environment variable to set. Changing this can break many terminal programs, only change it if you know what you are doing, not because you read some advice on "Stack Overflow" to change it. The TERM variable is used by various programs to get information about the capabilities and behavior of the terminal. If you change it, depending on what programs you run, and how different the terminal you are changing it to is, various things from key-presses, to colors, to various advanced features may not work. Changing this option by reloading the config will only affect newly created windows.
wayland_titlebar_color system
The color of the kitty window's titlebar on Wayland systems with client side window decorations such as GNOME. A value of system means to use the default system color, a value of background means to use the background color of the currently active window and finally you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red.
macos_titlebar_color system
The color of the kitty window's titlebar on macOS. A value of system means to use the default system color, light or dark can also be used to set it explicitly. A value of background means to use the background color of the currently active window and finally you can use an arbitrary color, such as #12af59 or red. WARNING: This option works by using a hack when arbitrary color (or background) is configured, as there is no proper Cocoa API for it. It sets the background color of the entire window and makes the titlebar transparent. As such it is incompatible with background_opacity. If you want to use both, you are probably better off just hiding the titlebar with hide_window_decorations.
macos_option_as_alt no
Use the Option key as an Alt key on macOS. With this set to no, kitty will use the macOS native Option+Key to enter Unicode character behavior. This will break any Alt+Key keyboard shortcuts in your terminal programs, but you can use the macOS Unicode input technique. You can use the values: left, right or both to use only the left, right or both Option keys as Alt, instead. Note that kitty itself always treats Option the same as Alt. This means you cannot use this option to configure different kitty shortcuts for Option+Key vs. Alt+Key. Also, any kitty shortcuts using Option/Alt+Key will take priority, so that any such key presses will not be passed to terminal programs running inside kitty. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
macos_hide_from_tasks no
Hide the kitty window from running tasks on macOS (⌘+Tab and the Dock). Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
macos_quit_when_last_window_closed no
Have kitty quit when all the top-level windows are closed on macOS. By default, kitty will stay running, even with no open windows, as is the expected behavior on macOS.
macos_window_resizable yes
Disable this if you want kitty top-level OS windows to not be resizable on macOS. Changing this option by reloading the config will only affect newly created OS windows.
macos_thicken_font 0
Draw an extra border around the font with the given width, to increase legibility at small font sizes on macOS. For example, a value of 0.75 will result in rendering that looks similar to sub-pixel antialiasing at common font sizes.
macos_traditional_fullscreen no
Use the macOS traditional full-screen transition, that is faster, but less pretty.
macos_show_window_title_in all
Control where the window title is displayed on macOS. A value of window will show the title of the currently active window at the top of the macOS window. A value of menubar will show the title of the currently active window in the macOS global menu bar, making use of otherwise wasted space. A value of all will show the title in both places, and none hides the title. See macos_menubar_title_max_length for how to control the length of the title in the menu bar.
macos_menubar_title_max_length 0
The maximum number of characters from the window title to show in the macOS global menu bar. Values less than one means that there is no maximum limit.
macos_custom_beam_cursor no
Use a custom mouse cursor for macOS that is easier to see on both light and dark backgrounds. Nowadays, the default macOS cursor already comes with a white border. WARNING: this might make your mouse cursor invisible on dual GPU machines. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
macos_colorspace srgb
The colorspace in which to interpret terminal colors. The default of srgb will cause colors to match those seen in web browsers. The value of default will use whatever the native colorspace of the display is. The value of displayp3 will use Apple's special snowflake display P3 color space, which will result in over saturated (brighter) colors with some color shift. Reloading configuration will change this value only for newly created OS windows.
linux_display_server auto
Choose between Wayland and X11 backends. By default, an appropriate backend based on the system state is chosen automatically. Set it to x11 or wayland to force the choice. Changing this option by reloading the config is not supported.
Keys are identified simply by their lowercase Unicode characters. For example: a for the A key, [ for the left square bracket key, etc. For functional keys, such as Enter or Escape, the names are present at Functional key definitions. For modifier keys, the names are ctrl (control, ⌃), shift (⇧), alt (opt, option, ⌥), super (cmd, command, ⌘). See also: GLFW mods
On Linux you can also use XKB key names to bind keys that are not supported by GLFW. See XKB keys for a list of key names. The name to use is the part after the XKB_KEY_ prefix. Note that you can only use an XKB key name for keys that are not known as GLFW keys.
Finally, you can use raw system key codes to map keys, again only for keys that are not known as GLFW keys. To see the system key code for a key, start kitty with the kitty --debug-input option, kitty will output some debug text for every key event. In that text look for native_code, the value of that becomes the key name in the shortcut. For example:
on_key_input: glfw key: 0x61 native_code: 0x61 action: PRESS mods: none text: 'a'
Here, the key name for the A key is 0x61 and you can use it with:
map ctrl+0x61 something
to map Ctrl+A to something.
You can use the special action no_op to unmap a keyboard shortcut that is assigned in the default configuration:
map kitty_mod+space no_op
If you would like kitty to completely ignore a key event, not even sending it to the program running in the terminal, map it to discard_event:
map kitty_mod+f1 discard_event
You can combine multiple actions to be triggered by a single shortcut with combine action, using the syntax below:
map key combine <separator> action1 <separator> action2 <separator> action3 ...
For example:
map kitty_mod+e combine : new_window : next_layout
This will create a new window and switch to the next available layout.
You can use multi-key shortcuts with the syntax shown below:
map key1>key2>key3 action
For example:
map ctrl+f>2 set_font_size 20
The full list of actions that can be mapped to key presses is available here.
kitty_mod ctrl+shift
Special modifier key alias for default shortcuts. You can change the value of this option to alter all default shortcuts that use kitty_mod.
clear_all_shortcuts no
Remove all shortcut definitions up to this point. Useful, for instance, to remove the default shortcuts.
action_alias launch_tab launch --type=tab --cwd=current
Define action aliases to avoid repeating the same options in multiple mappings. Aliases can be defined for any action and will be expanded recursively. For example, the above alias allows you to create mappings to launch a new tab in the current working directory without duplication:
map f1 launch_tab vim map f2 launch_tab emacs
Similarly, to alias kitten invocation:
action_alias hints kitten hints --hints-offset=0
kitten_alias hints hints --hints-offset=0
Like action_alias above, but specifically for kittens. Generally, prefer to use action_alias. This option is a legacy version, present for backwards compatibility. It causes all invocations of the aliased kitten to be substituted. So the example above will cause all invocations of the hints kitten to have the --hints-offset=0 option applied.
map ctrl+shift+c copy_to_clipboard map cmd+c copy_to_clipboard 🍎
There is also a copy_or_interrupt action that can be optionally mapped to Ctrl+C. It will copy only if there is a selection and send an interrupt otherwise. Similarly, copy_and_clear_or_interrupt will copy and clear the selection or send an interrupt if there is no selection.
map ctrl+shift+v paste_from_clipboard map cmd+v paste_from_clipboard 🍎
map ctrl+shift+s paste_from_selection map shift+insert paste_from_selection
map ctrl+shift+o pass_selection_to_program
You can also pass the contents of the current selection to any program with pass_selection_to_program. By default, the system's open program is used, but you can specify your own, the selection will be passed as a command line argument to the program. For example:
map kitty_mod+o pass_selection_to_program firefox
You can pass the current selection to a terminal program running in a new kitty window, by using the @selection placeholder:
map kitty_mod+y new_window less @selection
map ctrl+shift+up scroll_line_up map ctrl+shift+k scroll_line_up map opt+cmd+page_up scroll_line_up 🍎 map cmd+up scroll_line_up 🍎
map ctrl+shift+down scroll_line_down map ctrl+shift+j scroll_line_down map opt+cmd+page_down scroll_line_down 🍎 map cmd+down scroll_line_down 🍎
map ctrl+shift+page_up scroll_page_up map cmd+page_up scroll_page_up 🍎
map ctrl+shift+page_down scroll_page_down map cmd+page_down scroll_page_down 🍎
map ctrl+shift+home scroll_home map cmd+home scroll_home 🍎
map ctrl+shift+end scroll_end map cmd+end scroll_end 🍎
map ctrl+shift+z scroll_to_prompt -1
Use a parameter of 0 for scroll_to_prompt to scroll to the last jumped to or the last clicked position. Requires shell integration to work.
map ctrl+shift+x scroll_to_prompt 1
map ctrl+shift+h show_scrollback
You can pipe the contents of the current screen and history buffer as STDIN to an arbitrary program using launch --stdin-source. For example, the following opens the scrollback buffer in less in an overlay window:
map f1 launch --stdin-source=@screen_scrollback --stdin-add-formatting --type=overlay less +G -R
For more details on piping screen and buffer contents to external programs, see The launch command.
map ctrl+shift+g show_last_command_output
You can also define additional shortcuts to get the command output. For example, to get the first command output on screen:
map f1 show_first_command_output_on_screen
To get the command output that was last accessed by a keyboard action or mouse action:
map f1 show_last_visited_command_output
You can pipe the output of the last command run in the shell using the launch action. For example, the following opens the output in less in an overlay window:
map f1 launch --stdin-source=@last_cmd_output --stdin-add-formatting --type=overlay less +G -R
To get the output of the first command on the screen, use @first_cmd_output_on_screen. To get the output of the last jumped to command, use @last_visited_cmd_output.
Requires shell integration to work.
map ctrl+shift+enter new_window map cmd+enter new_window 🍎
You can open a new kitty window running an arbitrary program, for example:
map kitty_mod+y launch mutt
You can open a new window with the current working directory set to the working directory of the current window using:
map ctrl+alt+enter launch --cwd=current
You can open a new window that is allowed to control kitty via the kitty remote control facility with launch --allow-remote-control. Any programs running in that window will be allowed to control kitty. For example:
map ctrl+enter launch --allow-remote-control some_program
You can open a new window next to the currently active window or as the first window, with:
map ctrl+n launch --location=neighbor map ctrl+f launch --location=first
For more details, see The launch command.
map ctrl+shift+n new_os_window map cmd+n new_os_window 🍎
Works like new_window above, except that it opens a top-level OS window. In particular you can use new_os_window_with_cwd to open a window with the current working directory.
map ctrl+shift+w close_window map shift+cmd+d close_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+] next_window
map ctrl+shift+[ previous_window
map ctrl+shift+f move_window_forward
map ctrl+shift+b move_window_backward
map ctrl+shift+` move_window_to_top
map ctrl+shift+r start_resizing_window map cmd+r start_resizing_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+1 first_window map cmd+1 first_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+2 second_window map cmd+2 second_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+3 third_window map cmd+3 third_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+4 fourth_window map cmd+4 fourth_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+5 fifth_window map cmd+5 fifth_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+6 sixth_window map cmd+6 sixth_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+7 seventh_window map cmd+7 seventh_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+8 eighth_window map cmd+8 eighth_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+9 ninth_window map cmd+9 ninth_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+0 tenth_window
map ctrl+shift+f7 focus_visible_window
Display overlay numbers and alphabets on the window, and switch the focus to the window when you press the key. When there are only two windows, the focus will be switched directly without displaying the overlay. You can change the overlay characters and their order with option visual_window_select_characters.
map ctrl+shift+f8 swap_with_window
Works like focus_visible_window above, but swaps the window.
map ctrl+shift+right next_tab map shift+cmd+] next_tab 🍎 map ctrl+tab next_tab
map ctrl+shift+left previous_tab map shift+cmd+[ previous_tab 🍎 map ctrl+shift+tab previous_tab
map ctrl+shift+t new_tab map cmd+t new_tab 🍎
map ctrl+shift+q close_tab map cmd+w close_tab 🍎
map shift+cmd+w close_os_window 🍎
map ctrl+shift+. move_tab_forward
map ctrl+shift+, move_tab_backward
map ctrl+shift+alt+t set_tab_title map shift+cmd+i set_tab_title 🍎
You can also create shortcuts to go to specific tabs, with 1 being the first tab, 2 the second tab and -1 being the previously active tab, and any number larger than the last tab being the last tab:
map ctrl+alt+1 goto_tab 1 map ctrl+alt+2 goto_tab 2
Just as with new_window above, you can also pass the name of arbitrary commands to run when using new_tab and new_tab_with_cwd. Finally, if you want the new tab to open next to the current tab rather than at the end of the tabs list, use:
map ctrl+t new_tab !neighbor [optional cmd to run]
map ctrl+shift+l next_layout
You can also create shortcuts to switch to specific layouts:
map ctrl+alt+t goto_layout tall map ctrl+alt+s goto_layout stack
Similarly, to switch back to the previous layout:
map ctrl+alt+p last_used_layout
There is also a toggle_layout action that switches to the named layout or back to the previous layout if in the named layout. Useful to temporarily "zoom" the active window by switching to the stack layout:
map ctrl+alt+z toggle_layout stack
You can change the font size for all top-level kitty OS windows at a time or only the current one.
map ctrl+shift+equal change_font_size all +2.0 map ctrl+shift+plus change_font_size all +2.0 map ctrl+shift+kp_add change_font_size all +2.0 map cmd+plus change_font_size all +2.0 🍎 map cmd+equal change_font_size all +2.0 🍎 map shift+cmd+equal change_font_size all +2.0 🍎
map ctrl+shift+minus change_font_size all -2.0 map ctrl+shift+kp_subtract change_font_size all -2.0 map cmd+minus change_font_size all -2.0 🍎 map shift+cmd+minus change_font_size all -2.0 🍎
map ctrl+shift+backspace change_font_size all 0 map cmd+0 change_font_size all 0 🍎
To setup shortcuts for specific font sizes:
map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size all 10.0
To setup shortcuts to change only the current OS window's font size:
map kitty_mod+f6 change_font_size current 10.0
Use the hints kitten to select text and either pass it to an external program or insert it into the terminal or copy it to the clipboard.
map ctrl+shift+e open_url_with_hints
Open a currently visible URL using the keyboard. The program used to open the URL is specified in open_url_with.
map ctrl+shift+p>f kitten hints --type path --program -
Select a path/filename and insert it into the terminal. Useful, for instance to run git commands on a filename output from a previous git command.
map ctrl+shift+p>shift+f kitten hints --type path
Select a path/filename and open it with the default open program.
map ctrl+shift+p>l kitten hints --type line --program -
Select a line of text and insert it into the terminal. Useful for the output of things like: ls -1.
map ctrl+shift+p>w kitten hints --type word --program -
Select words and insert into terminal.
map ctrl+shift+p>h kitten hints --type hash --program -
Select something that looks like a hash and insert it into the terminal. Useful with git, which uses SHA1 hashes to identify commits.
map ctrl+shift+p>n kitten hints --type linenum
Select something that looks like filename:linenum and open it in vim at the specified line number.
map ctrl+shift+p>y kitten hints --type hyperlink
Select a hyperlink (i.e. a URL that has been marked as such by the terminal program, for example, by ls --hyperlink=auto).
The hints kitten has many more modes of operation that you can map to different shortcuts. For a full description see hints kitten.
map ctrl+shift+f1 show_kitty_doc overview
map ctrl+shift+f11 toggle_fullscreen map ctrl+cmd+f toggle_fullscreen 🍎
map ctrl+shift+f10 toggle_maximized
map opt+cmd+s toggle_macos_secure_keyboard_entry 🍎
map ctrl+shift+u kitten unicode_input map ctrl+cmd+space kitten unicode_input 🍎
map ctrl+shift+f2 edit_config_file map cmd+, edit_config_file 🍎
map ctrl+shift+escape kitty_shell window
Open the kitty shell in a new window / tab / overlay / os_window to control kitty using commands.
map ctrl+shift+a>m set_background_opacity +0.1
map ctrl+shift+a>l set_background_opacity -0.1
map ctrl+shift+a>1 set_background_opacity 1
map ctrl+shift+a>d set_background_opacity default
map ctrl+shift+delete clear_terminal reset active map opt+cmd+r clear_terminal reset active 🍎
You can create shortcuts to clear/reset the terminal. For example:
# Reset the terminal map f1 clear_terminal reset active # Clear the terminal screen by erasing all contents map f1 clear_terminal clear active # Clear the terminal scrollback by erasing it map f1 clear_terminal scrollback active # Scroll the contents of the screen into the scrollback map f1 clear_terminal scroll active # Clear everything up to the line with the cursor map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor active
If you want to operate on all kitty windows instead of just the current one, use all instead of active.
It is also possible to remap Ctrl+L to both scroll the current screen contents into the scrollback buffer and clear the screen, instead of just clearing the screen, for example, for ZSH add the following to ~/.zshrc:
scroll-and-clear-screen() {
printf '\n%.0s' {1..$LINES}
zle clear-screen
}
zle -N scroll-and-clear-screen
bindkey '^l' scroll-and-clear-screen
map cmd+k clear_terminal to_cursor active 🍎
map ctrl+shift+f5 load_config_file map ctrl+cmd+, load_config_file 🍎
Reload kitty.conf, applying any changes since the last time it was loaded. Note that a handful of options cannot be dynamically changed and require a full restart of kitty. Particularly, when changing shortcuts for actions located on the macOS global menu bar, a full restart is needed. You can also map a keybinding to load a different config file, for example:
map f5 load_config /path/to/alternative/kitty.conf
Note that all options from the original kitty.conf are discarded, in other words the new configuration replace the old ones.
map ctrl+shift+f6 debug_config map opt+cmd+, debug_config 🍎
Show details about exactly what configuration kitty is running with and its host environment. Useful for debugging issues.
You can tell kitty to send arbitrary (UTF-8) encoded text to the client program when pressing specified shortcut keys. For example:
map ctrl+alt+a send_text all Special text
This will send "Special text" when you press the Ctrl+Alt+A key combination. The text to be sent is a python string literal so you can use escapes like x1b to send control codes or u21fb to send Unicode characters (or you can just input the Unicode characters directly as UTF-8 text). You can use kitty +kitten show_key to get the key escape codes you want to emulate.
The first argument to send_text is the keyboard modes in which to activate the shortcut. The possible values are normal, application, kitty or a comma separated combination of them. The modes normal and application refer to the DECCKM cursor key mode for terminals, and kitty refers to the kitty extended keyboard protocol. The special value all means all of them.
Some more examples:
# Output a word and move the cursor to the start of the line (like typing and pressing Home) map ctrl+alt+a send_text normal Word\x1b[H map ctrl+alt+a send_text application Word\x1bOH # Run a command at a shell prompt (like typing the command and pressing Enter) map ctrl+alt+a send_text normal,application some command with arguments\r
map shift+cmd+/ open_url https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ 🍎
You can edit a fully commented sample kitty.conf by pressing the ctrl+shift+f2 shortcut in kitty. This will generate a config file with full documentation and all settings commented out. If you have a pre-existing kitty.conf, then that will be used instead, delete it to see the sample file.
See the list of all the things you can make kitty can do.
The actions described below can be mapped to any key press or mouse action using the map and mouse_map directives in kitty.conf. For configuration examples, see the default shortcut links for each action.
Clear the current selection
Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard and clear selection, if no selection, send SIGINT (aka ctrl+c)
Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard with ANSI formatting codes
Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard, if no selection, send SIGINT (aka ctrl+c)
Copy the selected text from the active window to the clipboard
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+c
Pass the selected text from the active window to the specified program
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+o
Paste the specified text into the current window
Show output from the first shell command on screen in a pager like less
Requires Shell integration to work
Show output from the last shell command in a pager like less
Requires Shell integration to work
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+g
Show the last non-empty output from a shell command in a pager like less
Requires Shell integration to work
Show the first command output below the last scrolled position via scroll_to_prompt
or the last mouse clicked command output in a pager like less
Requires Shell integration to work
Show scrollback in a pager like less
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+h
Copy the selection from the active window to the specified buffer
See Multiple copy/paste buffers for details.
Paste from the specified buffer to the active window
See Multiple copy/paste buffers for details.
Paste from the clipboard to the active window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+v
Paste from the primary selection, if present, otherwise the clipboard to the active window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+s
Show a dump of the current lines in the scrollback + screen with their line attributes
Close all shared SSH connections
See share_connections for details.
Show the effective configuration kitty is running with
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f6
Show the environment variables that the kitty process sees
Switch to the named layout
For example:
map f1 goto_layout tall
Go to the previously used layout
Perform a layout specific action. See Arrange windows for details
Go to the next enabled layout
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+l
Toggle the named layout
Switches to the named layout if another layout is current, otherwise switches to the last used layout. Useful to "zoom" a window temporarily by switching to the stack layout. For example:
map f1 toggle_layout stack
Remove a previously created marker
Scroll to the next or previous mark of the specified type
Toggle the current marker on/off
Create a new marker
Send the specified text to the active window
See send_text for details.
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+alt+h
Display the specified kitty documentation, preferring a local copy, if found.
For example:
# show the config docs map f1 show_kitty_doc conf # show the ssh kitten docs map f1 show_kitty_doc kittens/ssh
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f1
Send the specified SIGNAL to the foreground process in the active window
For example:
map f1 signal_child SIGTERM
Clear the terminal
See reset_terminal for details. For example:
# Reset the terminal map f1 clear_terminal reset active # Clear the terminal screen by erasing all contents map f1 clear_terminal clear active # Clear the terminal scrollback by erasing it map f1 clear_terminal scrollback active # Scroll the contents of the screen into the scrollback map f1 clear_terminal scroll active # Clear everything up to the line with the cursor map f1 clear_terminal to_cursor active
Default shortcuts using this action: cmd+k, ctrl+shift+delete
Combine multiple actions and map to a single keypress
The syntax is:
map key combine <separator> action1 <separator> action2 <separator> action3 ...
For example:
map kitty_mod+e combine : new_window : next_layout
Turn on/off ligatures in the specified window
See disable_ligatures for details
Discard this event completely ignoring it
Edit the kitty.conf config file in your favorite text editor
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f2
Input an arbitrary unicode character. See Unicode input for details.
Run the specified kitten. See Custom kittens for details
Default shortcuts using this action:
Run the kitty shell to control kitty with commands
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+escape
Launch the specified program in a new window/tab/etc.
See The launch command for details
Reload the config file
If mapped without arguments reloads the default config file, otherwise loads the specified config files, in order. Loading a config file replaces all config options. For example:
map f5 load_config_file /path/to/some/kitty.conf
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f5
Open the specified URL
Default shortcuts using this action: shift+cmd+/
Click a URL using the keyboard
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+e
Run a remote control command
For example:
map f1 remote_control set-spacing margin=30
See Mapping key presses to remote control commands for details.
Change colors in the specified windows
For details, see kitty @ set-colors. For example:
map f5 set_colors --configured /path/to/some/config/file/colors.conf
Toggle macOS secure keyboard entry
Default shortcuts using this action: opt+cmd+s
Unbind a shortcut
Mapping a shortcut to no_op causes kitty to not intercept the key stroke anymore, instead passing it to the program running inside it.
Click the URL under the mouse
Click the URL under the mouse only if the screen has no selection
Handle a mouse click
Try to perform the specified actions one after the other till one of them is successful. Supported actions are:
selection - check for a selection and if one exists abort processing link - if a link exists under the mouse, click it prompt - if the mouse click happens at a shell prompt move the cursor to the mouse location
For examples, see Mouse actions
Select clicked command output
Requires Shell integration to work
Manipulate the selection based on the current mouse position
For examples, see Mouse actions
Show clicked command output in a pager like less
Requires Shell integration to work
Paste the current primary selection
Paste the current primary selection or the clipboard if no selection is present
Scroll to the bottom of the scrollback buffer
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+end
Scroll to the top of the scrollback buffer
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+home
Scroll down by one line
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+down
Scroll up by one line
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+up
Scroll down by one page
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+page_down
Scroll up by one page
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+page_up
Scroll prompt to the bottom of the screen, filling in extra lines from the scrollback buffer
Scroll prompt to the top of the screen, filling screen with empty lines
Scroll to the previous/next shell command prompt
Allows easy jumping from one command to the next. Requires working Shell integration. Takes a single, optional, number as argument which is the number of prompts to jump, negative values jump up and positive values jump down. A value of zero will jump to the last prompt visited by this action. For example:
map ctrl+p scroll_to_prompt -1 # jump to previous map ctrl+n scroll_to_prompt 1 # jump to next map ctrl+o scroll_to_prompt 0 # jump to last visited
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+x, ctrl+shift+z
Close all the tabs in the current OS window other than the currently active tab
Close the current tab
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+q
Detach a tab, moving it to another OS Window
See detaching windows for details.
Go to the specified tab, by number, starting with 1
Zero and negative numbers go to previously active tabs
Move the active tab backward
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+,
Move the active tab forward
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+.
Create a new tab
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+t
Create a new tab with working directory for the window in it set to the same as the active window
Make the next tab active
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+right
Make the previous tab active
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+left
Interactively select a tab to switch to
Change the title of the active tab interactively, by typing in the new title.
If you specify an argument to this action then that is used as the title instead of asking for it. Use the empty string ("") to reset the title to default. For example:
# interactive usage map f1 set_tab_title # set a specific title map f2 set_tab_title some title # reset to default map f3 set_tab_title ""
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+alt+t
Close all windows in the tab other than the currently active window
Focus the eighth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+8
Focus the fifth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+5
Focus the first window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+1
Focus a visible window by pressing the number of the window. Window numbers are displayed
over the windows for easy selection in this mode. See visual_window_select_characters.
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f7
Focus the fourth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+4
Move the window in the specified direction
For example:
map ctrl+left move_window left map ctrl+down move_window bottom
Move active window backward (swap it with the previous window)
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+b
Move active window forward (swap it with the next window)
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f
Move active window to the top (make it the first window)
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+`
Focus the neighboring window in the current tab
For example:
map ctrl+left neighboring_window left map ctrl+down neighboring_window bottom
Focus the next window in the current tab
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+]
Focus the ninth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+9
Focus the nth window if positive or the previously active windows if negative. When the number is larger
than the number of windows focus the last window. For example:
# focus the previously active window map ctrl+p nth_window -1 # focus the first window map ctrl+1 nth_window 0
Focus the previous window in the current tab
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+[
Reset window sizes undoing any dynamic resizing of windows
Resize the active window by the specified amount
See Resizing windows for details.
Focus the second window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+2
Focus the seventh window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+7
Focus the sixth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+6
Swap the current window with another window in the current tab, selected visually. See visual_window_select_characters
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f8
Focus the tenth window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+0
Focus the third window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+3
Change the font size for the current or all OS Windows
See Font sizes for details.
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+minus, ctrl+shift+equal, ctrl+shift+backspace
Close the currently active OS Window
Default shortcuts using this action: shift+cmd+w
Close the currently active window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+w
Close window with confirmation
Asks for confirmation before closing the window. If you don't want the confirmation when the window is sitting at a shell prompt (requires Shell integration), use:
map f1 close_window_with_confirmation ignore-shell
Detach a window, moving it to another tab or OS Window
See detaching windows for details.
New OS Window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+n
New OS Window with the same working directory as the currently active window
Create a new window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+enter
Create a new window with working directory same as that of the active window
Focus the nth OS window
Quit, closing all windows
Set the background opacity for the active OS Window
For example:
map f1 set_background_opacity +0.1 map f2 set_background_opacity -0.1 map f3 set_background_opacity 0.5
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+a>l, ctrl+shift+a>1, ctrl+shift+a>m, ctrl+shift+a>d
Resize the active window interactively
See Resizing windows for details.
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+r
Toggle the fullscreen status of the active OS Window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f11
Toggle the maximized status of the active OS Window
Default shortcuts using this action: ctrl+shift+f10
Kovid Goyal
2023, Kovid Goyal
| May 13, 2023 | 0.26.5 |