Command palette

The command palette lets you browse, search and trigger all keyboard shortcuts and actions in kitty from a single searchable overlay. Press ctrl+shift+f3 to open it (default: Ctrl+Shift+F3).

The command palette showing search results for win close.

All mapped actions (those with a keyboard shortcut) and unmapped actions (those available but not bound to any key) are listed, organized by category. Mouse bindings are shown in a separate section. Simply type to search, select a result, and press Enter to run it.

Searching

As you type into the search bar, the palette filters results in real time using word-level matching across three columns: key, action, and category.

Multiple search terms are supported. Typing scroll page matches items that contain both "scroll" and "page" in any column. Items matching more of your search terms rank higher than those matching fewer.

The search also handles compound tokens that contain delimiters such as underscores or slashes. For example, typing mouse_selection matches the full compound name as a unit. Typo tolerance is built in for words of four characters or longer.

Matched characters are highlighted in the results so you can see exactly where each term matched.

Keyboard controls

The following keys are available while the command palette is open:

Key	Action
Any text	Filter results by typing a search query
Enter	Run the selected action
Escape	Clear the search query, or close the palette if the query is already empty
Up / Ctrl+K / Ctrl+P	Move selection up
Down / Ctrl+J / Ctrl+N	Move selection down
Page Up	Move selection up by a page
Page Down	Move selection down by a page
Home	Jump to the first result
End	Jump to the last result
Backspace	Delete the last character from the query
F12	Toggle display of unmapped actions
Mouse click	Select and run the clicked action

Unmapped actions

By default, the palette shows both mapped actions (those bound to a shortcut) and unmapped actions (those with no shortcut assigned). Unmapped actions appear with an (unmapped) label in the key column. Press F12 to toggle their visibility. This preference is remembered across sessions.

Unmapped actions are useful for discovering functionality that you may not have configured a shortcut for. You can run them directly from the palette, or note the action name and add a mapping in kitty.conf.

Custom keyboard modes

If you have defined custom keyboard modes in your configuration, their bindings appear under separate mode headers in the palette. The push_keyboard_mode bindings are grouped with the target mode they activate, making it easy to see how to enter each mode alongside its shortcuts.

Configuration

The default mapping to open the command palette is:

map kitty_mod+f3 command_palette

You can change this in kitty.conf like any other mapping. For example:

map ctrl+p command_palette