Overview¶
Design philosophy¶
kitty is designed for power keyboard users. To that end all its controls work with the keyboard (although it fully supports mouse interactions as well). Its configuration is a simple, human editable, single file for easy reproducibility (I like to store configuration in source control).
The code in kitty is designed to be simple, modular and hackable. It is written in a mix of C (for performance sensitive parts), Python (for easy extensibility and flexibility of the UI) and Go (for the command line kittens). It does not depend on any large and complex UI toolkit, using only OpenGL for rendering everything.
Finally, kitty is designed from the ground up to support all modern terminal features, such as Unicode, true color, bold/italic fonts, text formatting, etc. It even extends existing text formatting escape codes, to add support for features not available elsewhere, such as colored and styled (curly) underlines. One of the design goals of kitty is to be easily extensible so that new features can be added in the future with relatively little effort.
Tabs and Windows¶
kitty is capable of running multiple programs organized into tabs and windows. The top level of organization is the OS window. Each OS window consists of one or more tabs. Each tab consists of one or more kitty windows. The kitty windows can be arranged in multiple different layouts, like windows are organized in a tiling window manager. The keyboard controls (which are all customizable) for tabs and windows are:
Scrolling¶
Action |
Shortcut |
|---|---|
Line up |
|
Line down |
|
Page up |
|
Page down |
|
Top |
|
Bottom |
|
Previous shell prompt |
|
Next shell prompt |
|
Browse scrollback in less |
|
Browse last cmd output |
The scroll actions only take effect when the terminal is in the main screen. When the alternate screen is active (for example when using a full screen program like an editor) the key events are instead passed to program running in the terminal.
Tabs¶
Action |
Shortcut |
|---|---|
New tab |
|
Close tab |
|
Next tab |
|
Previous tab |
|
Next layout |
|
Move tab forward |
|
Move tab backward |
|
Set tab title |
|
Windows¶
Action |
Shortcut |
|---|---|
New window |
|
New OS window |
|
Close window |
|
Resize window |
|
Next window |
|
Previous window |
|
Move window forward |
|
Move window backward |
|
Move window to top |
|
Visually focus window |
|
Visually swap window |
|
Focus specific window |
|
Additionally, you can define shortcuts in kitty.conf to focus
neighboring windows and move windows around (similar to window movement in
vim):
map ctrl+left neighboring_window left
map shift+left move_window right
map ctrl+down neighboring_window down
map shift+down move_window up
...
You can also define a shortcut to switch to the previously active window:
map ctrl+p nth_window -1
nth_window will focus the nth window for positive numbers (starting from
zero) and the previously active windows for negative numbers.
To switch to the nth OS window, you can define nth_os_window. Only
positive numbers are accepted, starting from one.
You can define shortcuts to detach the current window and move it to another tab or another OS window:
# moves the window into a new OS window
map ctrl+f2 detach_window
# moves the window into a new tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window new-tab
# moves the window into the previously active tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window tab-prev
# moves the window into the tab at the left of the active tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window tab-left
# moves the window into a new tab created to the left of the active tab
map ctrl+f3 detach_window new-tab-left
# asks which tab to move the window into
map ctrl+f4 detach_window ask
Similarly, you can detach the current tab, with:
# moves the tab into a new OS window
map ctrl+f2 detach_tab
# asks which OS Window to move the tab into
map ctrl+f4 detach_tab ask
Finally, you can define a shortcut to close all windows in a tab other than the currently active window:
map f9 close_other_windows_in_tab
Other keyboard shortcuts¶
The full list of actions that can be mapped to key presses is available here. To learn how to do more sophisticated keyboard mappings, such as modal mappings, per application mappings, etc. see Making your keyboard dance.
Action |
Shortcut |
|---|---|
Show this help |
|
Copy to clipboard |
|
Paste from clipboard |
|
Paste from selection |
|
Pass selection to program |
|
Increase font size |
|
Decrease font size |
|
Restore font size |
|
Toggle fullscreen |
|
Toggle maximized |
|
Input Unicode character |
|
Open URL in web browser |
|
Reset the terminal |
|
Edit |
|
Reload |
|
Debug |
|
Open a kitty shell |
|
Increase background opacity |
|
Decrease background opacity |
|
Full background opacity |
|
Reset background opacity |
Configuring kitty¶
kitty is highly configurable, everything from keyboard shortcuts to painting
frames-per-second. Press ctrl+shift+f2 in kitty to open its fully
commented sample config file in your text editor. For details see the
configuration docs.
Layouts¶
A layout is an arrangement of multiple kitty windows
inside a top-level OS window. The layout manages all its
windows automatically, resizing and moving them as needed. You can create a new
window using the ctrl+shift+enter key combination.
Currently, there are seven layouts available:
Fat -- One (or optionally more) windows are shown full width on the top, the rest of the windows are shown side-by-side on the bottom
Grid -- All windows are shown in a grid
Horizontal -- All windows are shown side-by-side
Splits -- Windows arranged in arbitrary patterns created using horizontal and vertical splits
Stack -- Only a single maximized window is shown at a time
Tall -- One (or optionally more) windows are shown full height on the left, the rest of the windows are shown one below the other on the right
Vertical -- All windows are shown one below the other
By default, all layouts are enabled and you can switch between layouts using
the ctrl+shift+l key combination. You can also create shortcuts to select
particular layouts, and choose which layouts you want to enable, see
Layout management for examples. The first layout listed in
enabled_layouts becomes the default layout.
For more details on the layouts and how to use them see the documentation.
Extending kitty¶
kitty has a powerful framework for scripting. You can create small terminal programs called kittens. These can be used to add features to kitty, for example, editing remote files or inputting Unicode characters. They can also be used to create programs that leverage kitty’s powerful features, for example, viewing images or diffing files with image support.
You can create your own kittens to scratch your own itches.
For a list of all the builtin kittens, see here.
Additionally, you can use the watchers framework to create Python scripts that run in response to various events such as windows being resized, closing, having their titles changed, etc.
Remote control¶
kitty has a very powerful system that allows you to control it from the shell prompt, even over SSH. You can change colors, fonts, open new windows, tabs, set their titles, change window layout, get text from one window and send text to another, etc. The possibilities are endless. See the tutorial to get started.
Startup Sessions¶
You can control the tabs, kitty window layout,
working directory, startup programs, etc. by creating a session file and using
the kitty --session command line flag or the startup_session
option in kitty.conf. An example, showing all available commands:
# Set the layout for the current tab
layout tall
# Set the working directory for windows in the current tab
cd ~
# Create a window and run the specified command in it
launch zsh
# Create a window with some environment variables set and run vim in it
launch --env FOO=BAR vim
# Set the title for the next window
launch --title "Chat with x" irssi --profile x
# Run a short lived command and see its output
launch --hold message-of-the-day
# Create a new tab
# The part after new_tab is the optional tab title which will be displayed in
# the tab bar, if omitted, the title of the active window will be used instead.
new_tab my tab
cd ~/somewhere
# Set the layouts allowed in this tab
enabled_layouts tall,stack
# Set the current layout
layout stack
launch zsh
# Create a new OS window
# Any definitions specified before the first new_os_window will apply to first OS window.
new_os_window
# Set new window size to 80x24 cells
os_window_size 80c 24c
# Set the --class for the new OS window
os_window_class mywindow
# Change the OS window state to normal, fullscreen, maximized or minimized
os_window_state normal
launch sh
# Resize the current window (see the resize_window action for details)
resize_window wider 2
# Make the current window the active (focused) window in its tab
focus
# Make the current OS Window the globally active window (not supported on Wayland)
focus_os_window
launch emacs
# Create a complex layout using multiple splits. Creates two columns of
# windows with two windows in each column. The windows in the first column are
# split 50:50. In the second column the windows are not evenly split.
new_tab complex tab
layout splits
# First window, set a user variable on it so we can focus it later
launch --var window=first
# Create the second column by splitting the first window vertically
launch --location=vsplit
# Create the third window in the second column by splitting the second window horizontally
# Make it take 40% of the height instead of 50%
launch --location=hsplit --bias=40
# Go back to focusing the first window, so that we can split it
focus_matching_window var:window=first
# Create the final window in the first column
launch --location=hsplit
Note
The launch command when used in a session file cannot create new OS windows, or tabs.
Note
Environment variables of the form ${NAME} or $NAME are
expanded in the session file, except in the arguments (not options) to the
launch command.
Creating tabs/windows¶
kitty can be told to run arbitrary programs in new tabs, windows or overlays at a keypress. To learn how to do this, see here.
Mouse features¶
You can click on a URL to open it in a browser.
You can double click to select a word and then drag to select more words.
You can triple click to select a line and then drag to select more lines.
You can triple click while holding Ctrl+Alt to select from clicked point to end of line.
You can right click to extend a previous selection.
You can hold down Ctrl+Alt and drag with the mouse to select in columns.
Selecting text automatically copies it to the primary clipboard (on platforms with a primary clipboard).
You can middle click to paste from the primary clipboard (on platforms with a primary clipboard).
You can right click while holding Ctrl+Shift to open the output of the clicked on command in a pager (requires Shell integration)
You can select text with kitty even when a terminal program has grabbed the mouse by holding down the Shift key
All these actions can be customized in kitty.conf as described
here.
You can also customize what happens when clicking on hyperlinks in kitty, having it open files in your editor, download remote files, open things in your browser, etc.
For details, see here.
Font control¶
kitty has extremely flexible and powerful font selection features. You can specify individual families for the regular, bold, italic and bold+italic fonts. You can even specify specific font families for specific ranges of Unicode characters. This allows precise control over text rendering. It can come in handy for applications like powerline, without the need to use patched fonts. See the various font related configuration directives in Fonts.
The scrollback buffer¶
kitty supports scrolling back to view history, just like most terminals. You
can use either keyboard shortcuts or the mouse scroll wheel to do so. While
you are browsing the scrollback a small indicator
is displayed along the right edge of the window to show how far back you are.
However, kitty has an extra, neat feature. Sometimes you need to explore the scrollback
buffer in more detail, maybe search for some text or refer to it side-by-side
while typing in a follow-up command. kitty allows you to do this by pressing
the ctrl+shift+h shortcut, which will open the scrollback buffer in
your favorite pager program (which is less by default). Colors and
text formatting are preserved. You can explore the scrollback buffer comfortably
within the pager.
Additionally, you can pipe the contents of the scrollback buffer to an arbitrary, command running in a new window, tab or overlay. For example:
map f1 launch --stdin-source=@screen_scrollback --stdin-add-formatting less +G -R
Would open the scrollback buffer in a new window when you press the
F1 key. See show_scrollback for details.
If you want to use it with an editor such as vim to get more powerful features, see for example, kitty-scrollback.nvim or kitty-grab or see more tips for using various editor programs, in this thread.
If you wish to store very large amounts of scrollback to view using the piping
or show_scrollback features, you can use the
scrollback_pager_history_size option.
Integration with shells¶
kitty has the ability to integrate closely within common shells, such as zsh, fish and bash to enable features such as jumping to previous prompts in the scrollback, viewing the output of the last command in less, using the mouse to move the cursor while editing prompts, etc. See Shell integration for details.
Multiple copy/paste buffers¶
In addition to being able to copy/paste from the system clipboard, in kitty
you can also setup an arbitrary number of copy paste buffers. To do so, simply
add something like the following to your kitty.conf:
map f1 copy_to_buffer a
map f2 paste_from_buffer a
This will allow you to press F1 to copy the current selection to an
internal buffer named a and F2 to paste from that buffer. The buffer
names are arbitrary strings, so you can define as many such buffers as you need.
Marks¶
kitty has the ability to mark text on the screen based on regular expressions. This can be useful to highlight words or phrases when browsing output from long running programs or similar. To learn how this feature works, see Mark text on screen.