kitty

kitty is a fast, GPU-accelerated, feature-rich terminal emulator. It is highly customizable, cross-platform (Linux/macOS), and supports tabs, tiling layouts, startup sessions, extension scripting ("kittens"), and a built-in graphics protocol.

---

1. The kitty_mod Key

Almost all default shortcuts in kitty use a special modifier key sequence defined as kitty_mod.

• Linux/BSD: ctrl+shift (default)
• macOS: cmd or ctrl+shift (often mapped to command keys)

NOTE

You can rebind this in your config via kitty_mod ctrl+alt or any custom combination.

---

2. Window (Split-Pane) Management

Kitty supports splits/panes within a single tab without needing multiplexers like tmux.

Action	Shortcut	Description
New Window	kitty_mod + Enter	Opens a new pane in the current tab.
Close Window	kitty_mod + w	Closes the active pane.
Next Window	kitty_mod + ]	Focus the next window.
Previous Window	kitty_mod + [	Focus the previous window.
Move Window Forward	kitty_mod + f	Swaps the position of the active window forward.
Move Window Backward	kitty_mod + b	Swaps the position of the active window backward.
Pick Window to Focus	kitty_mod + f7	Displays overlays to select and focus a window by numbers.
Pick Window to Swap	kitty_mod + f8	Displays overlays to swap windows by numbers.

Layout Navigation

Kitty has built-in tiling layouts (e.g., tall, fat, grid, stack, splits).

• Next layout: kitty_mod + l
• Toggle zoom (Maximize current pane): kitty_mod + f10 (or kitty_mod + l to cycle to the stack layout)

---

3. Tab Management

Tabs represent multiple top-level shells running in a single application window.

Action	Shortcut
New Tab	kitty_mod + t
Close Tab	kitty_mod + q
Next Tab	kitty_mod + Right
Previous Tab	kitty_mod + Left
Move Tab Right	kitty_mod + .
Move Tab Left	kitty_mod + ,
Rename Tab	kitty_mod + alt + t (or double-click the tab title)
Go to Tab N	kitty_mod + 1 through 9

---

4. Scrolling and Scrollback

Navigate your command outputs and historical buffers.

Action	Shortcut
Scroll Line Up	kitty_mod + Up (or kitty_mod + k)
Scroll Line Down	kitty_mod + Down (or kitty_mod + j)
Scroll Page Up	kitty_mod + Page Up
Scroll Page Down	kitty_mod + Page Down
Scroll to Top	kitty_mod + Home
Scroll to Bottom	kitty_mod + End
Show Scrollback in Pager	kitty_mod + h (opens search/scroll history in your default pager)

---

5. Clipboard & Selections

Action	Shortcut	Description
Copy to Clipboard	kitty_mod + c	Copies selected text.
Paste from Clipboard	kitty_mod + v	Pastes clipboard content.
Paste from Selection	kitty_mod + s	Pastes from primary selection (middle mouse).
Pass Selection to Program	kitty_mod + o	Opens highlighted URLs/paths in your browser or editor.

---

6. Fonts and Display Size

Quickly adjust terminal scaling for presentations or screens.

• Increase Font Size: kitty_mod + + (or kitty_mod + =)
• Decrease Font Size: kitty_mod + -
• Reset Font Size: kitty_mod + Backspace

---

7. Configuration (kitty.conf)

Configuration is stored in plain text and can be reloaded instantly without restarting the terminal.

Configuration File Locations

• Linux/macOS: ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf
• Global Default: /etc/xdg/kitty/kitty.conf

TIP

Press kitty_mod + f2 to open your active configuration file directly in your editor.

Reloading & Debugging

• Reload configuration: kitty_mod + f5
• Toggle Fullscreen: kitty_mod + f11
• Open Kitty Command Palette: kitty_mod + f3 (search bindings and config commands)
• Open Kitty Shell: kitty_mod + Escape

---

8. Managing Color Schemes (Themes)

You can customize the color palette and background of the terminal through configuration files or built-in utilities.

1. Interactive Theme Selector

Kitty comes with a built-in theme manager that allows you to preview and select from 300+ pre-installed themes.

# Launch the interactive theme browser
kitty +kitten themes

• Use arrow keys to scroll and preview, Enter to select and save, or q to exit.
• Selecting a theme will automatically update your kitty.conf.

2. Switch Theme Non-Interactively

To change the theme instantly via command line or scripts, specify the theme name:

# Switch to Dimmed Monokai theme immediately in all running instances
kitty +kitten themes --reload-in=all "Dimmed Monokai"

3. Manual Customization in kitty.conf

Specify individual colors directly inside your ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf file:

# Main Colors
foreground            #dcdccc
background            #1f1f1f
selection_foreground  #000000
selection_background  #f0e68c

# Terminal Colors (ANSI colors)
color0  #3f3f3f
color8  #5f5f5f
color1  #705050
color9  #dca3a3

---

9. Extensibility: Kittens

Kittens are python scripts that run inside kitty to add advanced UI helpers.

# Display an image in the terminal using kitty's graphics protocol
kitty +kitten icat image.png

# Diff files side-by-side with highlighting
kitty +kitten diff file1.txt file2.txt

# Run SSH connection with automatic config propagation
kitty +kitten ssh user@remote-host