Keyboard reference

Keyboard shortcuts for Smalti on every platform. This page is generated from docs/keymap.md in the app repository.

This is the source of truth for every Smalti platform: macOS, iPadOS and iOS with a hardware keyboard, and Windows. The Mac app's command registry (Sources/Smalti/Keymap.swift) generates the menu bar, the command palette and the ? overlay, and a test checks that every command and chord in the registry appears in this file. Change both together.

Principles

1. One palette teaches the rest. ⌘K finds every command, panel, session, file and host, and shows each command's shortcut beside it. Commands without a shortcut have a short palette alias (type cl then Return for Claude Here). You only need to learn ⌘K on day one.
2. The terminal keeps its keys. Ctrl, Alt/Option and Esc always reach the shell, vim, tmux and Claude Code. Every Smalti chord on Apple platforms includes ⌘, which never reaches a PTY. The only bare keys Smalti reads are inside its own UI (palette, session list, Navigate Mode), never while a terminal has focus.
3. Few modifiers, one grammar. ⌘ is Smalti. ⌘⌥ plus a direction is about panels: it moves focus. Add ⇧ to carry the panel with you. Directions are the arrows or h j k l.
4. Nothing moves under you. A new panel lands beside the focused one, or in its project's region, and never pushes other panels. Only Arrange by Project rearranges, and only when asked.

Platform mapping

Avoided on purpose: ⌘Space, ⌘Tab, ⌘H, ⌘M, ⌘Q, ⌘⇧3, ⌘⇧4, ⌘⇧5 (system screenshots, which is why Places are ⌘1..9 and not ⌘⇧1..9), Globe-key combos on iPad, and anything with Win on Windows. ⌥⌘H is normally Hide Others; Smalti drops that menu item so the h of h j k l works.

The seven to learn first

Full keymap

General

Panels

Focus

Focus picks the nearest panel in that direction. A panel counts only if it lies past the focused panel's centre and edge on that side. Distance along the direction costs 1, sideways offset costs 2, and a panel that overlaps sideways has no sideways cost, so the panel directly beside you wins over a nearer diagonal one. Panels are numbered in reading order (rows top to bottom, then left to right) and the number shows in each title bar.

Move and resize

A move or resize step is one grid cell (24 points), then the magnets pull the moving edge onto a neighbour's edge or one gap away from it, if that is within half a step. A magnet never undoes the step.

View

Sidebar

In the session list: j / k or the arrows move, Return resumes (or focuses the panel already running it), / jumps to the filter, and Esc returns focus to the canvas.

Places

A Place is a saved camera plus the frame of every panel at the time. Going to a Place moves the camera back, puts saved panels back where they were, and reopens saved panels that were closed since. Panels opened later stay where they are.

Arrange by Project groups panels by project (the repository or folder of their working directory), packs each group into a block, and lays the blocks out in rows, so each project keeps one region. Arrange as Grid gives every panel the same size (the average panel) in a grid shaped like the window. Arrange in a Row or in a Column keeps sizes. On the Mac all four also sit beside Fit in the zoom controls, shown when the pointer is over them. Like Arrange by Project, they act on the selection when two or more panels are selected, else on every panel.

Navigate Mode

⇧⌘space enters a sticky key table, shown by an accent border around the canvas. Bare keys act while it is on, and terminals do not receive them.

Session graph

With the graph focused (click it, or open the full-window graph): arrows or h j k l pan, = and - zoom, f fits, Tab and ⇧Tab step through sessions newest first, Return opens the selected session, and Esc leaves the full-window graph.

Decision timeline

A graph panel switches between the session graph and Decisions. Decisions shows one project's human steering events (goal, redirect, interrupt, denial, answer, plan approval) left to right in time, one lane per session, with superseded decisions dimmed and dashed arcs from a decision to the one that replaced it. With the timeline focused:

Palette

⌘K searches everything at once. A prefix narrows it:

Matching is fuzzy: the letters must appear in order, and matches at the start of the text, at word starts and in runs score higher. A typed alias that exactly matches a command's alias always ranks that command first. With an empty query the palette lists commands, then panels, then recent sessions. Up and Down (or ⌃N / ⌃P) move, Return runs, Esc closes.

Mouse and trackpad: canvas

Mouse and trackpad: graph