skhd is a simple hotkey daemon for macOS. It is a stripped version of khd (although rewritten from scratch), that sacrifices the more advanced features in favour of increased responsiveness and performance.

skhd uses a subset of the grammar that khd uses. In other words, khd is able to load and run skhd config files without having to make any changes to the file. This makes it very simple to migrate between skhd and khd on demand.

skhd is able to hotload its config file, meaning that hotkeys can be edited and updated live while skhd is running.

skhd has an improved parser that is able to accurately identify both the line and character position of any symbol that does not follow the correct grammar rules for defining a hotkey. If a syntax error is detected during parsing, the parser will print the error and abort. skhd will still continue to run and when the syntax error has been fixed, it will automatically reload and reparse the config file.

feature comparison between skhd and khd

The first time skhd is ran, it will request access to the accessibility API.

After access has been granted, the application must be restarted.

Secure Keyboard Entry must be disabled for skhd to receive key-events.

Homebrew:

Requires xcode-8 command-line tools.

  brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
  brew services start skhd

  stdout -> /tmp/skhd.out
  stderr -> /tmp/skhd.err

Source:

Requires xcode-8 command-line tools.

  git clone https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd
  make install      # release version
  make              # debug version

-v | --version: Print version number to stdout
    skhd -v

-c | --config: Specify location of config file
    skhd -c ~/.skhdrc

skhd will load the configuration file $HOME/.skhdrc, unless otherwise specified.

A sample config is available here

A list of all built-in modifier and literal keywords can be found here

A hotkey is written according to the following rules:

hotkey   = <keysym> ':' <command> |
           <keysym> '->' ':' <command>

keysym   = <mod> '-' <key> | <key>

mod      = 'built-in mod keyword' | <mod> '+' <mod>

key      = <literal> | <keycode>

literal  = 'single letter or built-in keyword'

keycode  = 'apple keyboard kVK_<Key> values (0x3C)'

->       = keypress is not consumed by skhd

command  = command is executed through '$SHELL -c' and
           follows valid shell syntax. if the $SHELL environment
           variable is not set, it will default to '/bin/bash'.
           when bash is used, the ';' delimeter can be specified
           to chain commands.

           to allow a command to extend into multiple lines,
           prepend '\' at the end of the previous line.

           an EOL character signifies the end of the bind.