Windows and developer workflows
The layout dedicates several colour-coded zones to the actions that interrupt a developer's flow most often: switching windows, launching tools, sending terminal signals, parking text somewhere, and typing punctuation.
Every chord on this page assumes ✱ Hyper is held.
Window control
⇥ Q W A S form the azure block on the left of the keyboard. They close and cycle things, from a single tab up to the whole login session.
| Key | Hyper | + ⌘ | + ⌥ | + ⌃ | + ⇧ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⇥ | Next app | Previous app | Next desktop | — | Next tab |
| Q | Quit app | Quit app | — | Lock screen | Log out |
| W | Close window | Close window | Display sleep | — | Sleep |
| A | Window manager | Mission Control | Show desktop | Spotlight | — |
| S | Next tab | Previous tab | Next window | Previous window | — |
Two rows deserve a note.
✱ with A is intentionally not mapped. Because Hyper is ⌃ with ⌥ with ⇧ with ⌘ on the right-hand side, an unmapped key passes straight through to whatever application is listening. Bind ⌃ with ⌥ with ⇧ with ⌘ with A inside Moom, Magnet or any other window manager and it becomes your layout key. Slate is kept only as a historical example.
Sleep is not a keystroke but a shell command: ✱ with ⇧ with W runs pmset sleepnow and ✱ with ⌥ with W runs pmset displaysleepnow.
Karabiner needs no extra permission for these, but they will not fire if a
modal dialog is blocking input.
Application shortcuts
The yellow keys launch or focus six applications on three planes. Each rule is
a plain open -a shell command, so the target is matched by application name, which is exactly what makes them safe to rewrite.
| Key | Hyper | + ⌘ | + ⌥ |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | Safari | Finder | |
| R | iTerm2 | Preview | Terminal |
| T | Visual Studio Code | Typora | Notes |
| Y | Siri | Karabiner-Elements | Amphetamine |
| F | Alfred 5 | Dash | Dictionary |
| G | IntelliJ IDEA | Google Chrome | Calendar |
The configurator rewrites any of these names in the browser and exports a JSON file you can import directly, without cloning the repository or installing anything.
Because open -a both launches and focuses, one key does the job of a Dock
icon and a ⌘ with ⇥ hunt. If an application is already frontmost,
pressing its key again does nothing: it does not toggle.
Terminal and IDE control
The green keys put the control chords a shell uses constantly under your right hand, so the left hand never has to contort into ⌃ + a letter mid-sentence.
| Key | Hyper | + ⌘ |
|---|---|---|
| D | ⌃ with D · send EOF | ⌃ with ⌘ with D · look up the word under the pointer |
| Z | ⌃ with Z · SIGTSTP, suspend the job | F5 · start debugging |
| X | ⌃ with R · run in the IDE | ⌃ with F5 · run without debugging |
| C | Open Codex | Open Claude |
| V | ⌃ with V · Vim block-visual / literal prefix | — |
| B | ⌃ with B · Tmux prefix | — |
✱ with C and ✱ with ⌘ with C are open -a commands like the
yellow keys, so they can be repointed at whichever assistant you use.
✱ with Z and ✱ with X deliberately do not shadow ⌘ with Z undo or ⌘ with X cut: those need no Hyper, so both spellings coexist on the same physical keys.
Five text clipboards
Number keys 6–0 become five independent text clipboards. ✱ with ⌘ plus a number copies the current selection into that slot; ✱ plus the number pastes it back.
| Chord | What happens |
|---|---|
| ✱ with ⌘ with 6 … ✱ with ⌘ with 0 | Copy the selection, then pbpaste > ~/.clip6 … ~/.clip0 |
| ✱ with 6 … ✱ with 0 | cat ~/.clip6 | pbcopy, then paste |
Two things follow from that implementation, and both are useful:
- The slots survive logout, reboot, and the system clipboard. They are
ordinary files, so
cat ~/.clip7reads one from a shell and any editor can fill one without touching the keyboard at all. - They hold plain text only. Copying an image or a file into a slot stores
whatever
pbpasterenders as text, not the original object.
V3.1 deliberately uses five slots on 6–0. Older configurations also used 1–5, so check your habits before upgrading.
Code-oriented shifter
The orange keys move the punctuation a programmer types all day within reach of the home row, with no ⇧ gymnastics for brackets.
| Key | Hyper | + ⌘ | + ⌥ |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | _ | Zoom out | — |
| = | + | Zoom in | — |
| [ | ( | { | < |
| ] | ) | } | > |
| ; | : | ! | — |
| ' | = | = | — |
| / | Toggle comment | — | — |
| \ | Toggle comment | — | — |
The bracket keys are the payoff: [ and ] give all
three pairs (round, curly and angle) from the same two positions. And because
; and ' sit side by side, : = and ! = are
adjacent rolls, which is how Go and Rust assignment and comparison end up
faster to type than on a bare keyboard.
Both ✱ with / and ✱ with \ emit ⌘ with /, the comment shortcut nearly every editor and IDE shares.
Next
Use system functions and reference for function keys, screenshots, symbols, customization, and troubleshooting.