1KITTY(1) kitty KITTY(1)
2
6 kitty - kitty Documentation
7 kitty [options] [program-to-run ...]
9 Run the kitty terminal emulator. You can also specify the program to
11 run inside kitty as normal arguments following the options. For exam‐
12 ple: kitty sh -c "echo hello, world. Press ENTER to quit; read"
13 For comprehensive documentation for kitty, please see:
15 https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
16
18 --class <CLS>
19 Set the class part of the WM_CLASS window property. On Wayland,
20 it sets the app id. Default: kitty
21 --name <NAME>
23 Set the name part of the WM_CLASS property (defaults to using
24 the value from kitty --class)
25 --title <TITLE>, -T <TITLE>
27 Set the window title. This will override any title set by the
28 program running inside kitty. So only use this if you are run‐
29 ning a program that does not set titles. If combined with kitty
30 --session the title will be used for all windows created by the
31 session, that do not set their own titles.
32 --config <CONFIG>, -c <CONFIG>
34 Specify a path to the configuration file(s) to use. All configu‐
35 ration files are merged onto the builtin kitty.conf, overriding
36 the builtin values. This option can be specified multiple times
37 to read multiple configuration files in sequence, which are
38 merged. Use the special value NONE to not load a config file.
39 If this option is not specified, config files are searched for
41 in the order: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kitty/kitty.conf, ~/.con‐
42 fig/kitty/kitty.conf, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/kitty/kitty.conf. The
43 first one that exists is used as the config file.
44 If the environment variable KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY is specified,
46 that directory is always used and the above searching does not
47 happen.
48 If /etc/xdg/kitty/kitty.conf exists it is merged before (i.e.
50 with lower priority) than any user config files. It can be used
51 to specify system-wide defaults for all users.
52 --override <OVERRIDE>, -o <OVERRIDE>
54 Override individual configuration options, can be specified mul‐
55 tiple times. Syntax: name=value. For example: kitty -o
56 font_size=20
57 --directory <DIRECTORY>, -d <DIRECTORY>
59 Change to the specified directory when launching Default: .
60 --detach
62 Detach from the controlling terminal, if any
63 --session <SESSION>
65 Path to a file containing the startup session (tabs, windows,
66 layout, programs). Use - to read from STDIN. See the README file
67 for details and an example.
68 --watcher <WATCHER>, -w <WATCHER>
70 Path to a python file. Appropriately named functions in this
71 file will be called for various events, such as when the window
72 is resized, focused or closed. See the section on watchers in
73 the launch command documentation launch. Relative paths are re‐
74 solved relative to the kitty config directory. Note that this
75 watcher will be added only to all initially created windows, not
76 new windows created after startup.
77 --hold Remain open after child process exits. Note that this only af‐
79 fects the first window. You can quit by either using the close
80 window shortcut or pressing any key.
81 --single-instance, -1
83 If specified only a single instance of kitty will run. New invo‐
84 cations will instead create a new top-level window in the exist‐
85 ing kitty instance. This allows kitty to share a single sprite
86 cache on the GPU and also reduces startup time. You can also
87 have separate groups of kitty instances by using the kitty --in‐
88 stance-group option
89 --instance-group <INSTANCE_GROUP>
91 Used in combination with the kitty --single-instance option. All
92 kitty invocations with the same kitty --instance-group will re‐
93 sult in new windows being created in the first kitty instance
94 within that group
95 --wait-for-single-instance-window-close
97 Normally, when using --single-instance, kitty will open a new
98 window in an existing instance and quit immediately. With this
99 option, it will not quit till the newly opened window is closed.
100 Note that if no previous instance is found, then kitty will wait
101 anyway, regardless of this option.
102 --listen-on <LISTEN_ON>
104 Tell kitty to listen on the specified address for control mes‐
105 sages. For example, kitty --listen-on=unix:/tmp/mykitty or kitty
106 --listen-on=tcp:localhost:12345. On Linux systems, you can also
107 use abstract UNIX sockets, not associated with a file, like
108 this: kitty --listen-on=unix:@mykitty. Environment variables in
109 the setting are expanded and relative paths are resolved with
110 respect to the temporary directory. To control kitty, you can
111 send it commands with kitty @ using the kitty @ --to option to
112 specify this address. This option will be ignored, unless you
113 set allow_remote_control to yes in kitty.conf. Note that if you
114 run kitty @ within a kitty window, there is no need to specify
115 the --to option as it is read automatically from the environ‐
116 ment. For UNIX sockets, this can also be specified in
117 kitty.conf.
118 --start-as <START_AS>
120 Control how the initial kitty window is created. Default: nor‐
121 mal Choices: fullscreen, maximized, minimized, normal
122 Debugging options
124 --version, -v
125 The current kitty version
126 --dump-commands
128 Output commands received from child process to stdout
129 --replay-commands <REPLAY_COMMANDS>
131 Replay previously dumped commands. Specify the path to a dump
132 file previously created by --dump-commands. You can open a new
133 kitty window to replay the commands with:
134 kitty sh -c "kitty --replay-commands /path/to/dump/file; read"
136 --dump-bytes <DUMP_BYTES>
138 Path to file in which to store the raw bytes received from the
139 child process
140 --debug-gl, --debug-rendering
142 Debug rendering commands. This will cause all OpenGL calls to
143 check for errors instead of ignoring them. Also prints out mis‐
144 cellaneous debug information. Useful when debugging rendering
145 problems
146 --debug-keyboard
148 This option will cause kitty to print out key events as they are
149 received
150 --debug-font-fallback
152 Print out information about the selection of fallback fonts for
153 characters not present in the main font.
154 --debug-config
156 Print out information about the system and kitty configuration.
157
159 kitty is capable of running multiple programs organized into tabs and
160 windows. The top level of organization is the Tab. Each tab consists of
161 one or more windows. The windows can be arranged in multiple different
162 layouts, like windows are organized in a tiling window manager. The
163 keyboard controls (which are all customizable) for tabs and windows
164 are:
165 Scrolling
167 ┌─────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
168 │Action │ Shortcut │
169 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
170 │Scroll line up │ ctrl+shift+up (also ⌥+⌘+⇞ │
171 │ │ and ⌘+↑ on macOS) │
172 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
173 │Scroll line down │ ctrl+shift+down (also │
174 │ │ ⌥+⌘+⇟ and ⌘+↓ on macOS) │
175 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
176 │Scroll page up │ ctrl+shift+page_up (also │
177 │ │ ⌘+⇞ on macOS) │
178 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
179 │Scroll page down │ ctrl+shift+page_down (also │
180 │ │ ⌘+⇟ on macOS) │
181 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
182 │Scroll to top │ ctrl+shift+home (also ⌘+↖ │
183 │ │ on macOS) │
184 ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
185 │Scroll to bottom │ ctrl+shift+end (also ⌘+↘ │
186 │ │ on macOS) │
187 └─────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
188 Tabs
190 ┌──────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
191 │Action │ Shortcut │
192 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
193 │New tab │ ctrl+shift+t (also ⌘+t on │
194 │ │ macOS) │
195 └──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
196 │Close tab │ ctrl+shift+q (also ⌘+w on │
200 │ │ macOS) │
201 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
202 │Next tab │ ctrl+shift+right (also ^+⇥ │
203 │ │ and ⇧+⌘+] on macOS) │
204 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
205 │Previous tab │ ctrl+shift+left (also │
206 │ │ ⇧+^+⇥ and ⇧+⌘+[ on macOS) │
207 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
208 │Next layout │ ctrl+shift+l │
209 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
210 │Move tab forward │ ctrl+shift+. │
211 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
212 │Move tab backward │ ctrl+shift+, │
213 ├──────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
214 │Set tab title │ ctrl+shift+alt+t (also │
215 │ │ ⇧+⌘+i on macOS) │
216 └──────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
217 Windows
219 ┌──────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
220 │Action │ Shortcut │
221 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
222 │New window │ ctrl+shift+enter (also ⌘+↩ │
223 │ │ on macOS) │
224 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
225 │New OS window │ ctrl+shift+n (also ⌘+n on │
226 │ │ macOS) │
227 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
228 │Close window │ ctrl+shift+w (also ⇧+⌘+d │
229 │ │ on macOS) │
230 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
231 │Next window │ ctrl+shift+] │
232 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
233 │Previous window │ ctrl+shift+[ │
234 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
235 │Move window forward │ ctrl+shift+f │
236 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
237 │Move window backward │ ctrl+shift+b │
238 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
239 │Move window to top │ ctrl+shift+` │
240 ├──────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
241 │Focus specific window │ ctrl+shift+1, ctrl+shift+2 │
242 │ │ ... ctrl+shift+0 (also │
243 │ │ ⌘+1, ⌘+2 ... ⌘+9 on macOS) │
244 │ │ (clockwise from the │
245 │ │ top-left) │
246 └──────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
247 Additionally, you can define shortcuts in kitty.conf to focus neighbor‐
249 ing windows and move windows around (similar to window movement in
250 vim):
251 map ctrl+left neighboring_window left
253 map shift+left move_window right
254 map ctrl+down neighboring_window down
255 map shift+down move_window up
256 ...
257 You can also define a shortcut to switch to the previously active win‐
259 dow:
260 map ctrl+p nth_window -1
262 nth_window will focus the nth window for positive numbers and the pre‐
264 viously active windows for negative numbers.
265 You can define shortcuts to detach the current window and move it to
267 another tab or another OS window:
268 # moves the window into a new OS window
270 map ctrl+f2 detach_window
271 # moves the window into a new Tab
272 map ctrl+f3 detach_window new-tab
273 # asks which tab to move the window into
274 map ctrl+f4 detach_window ask
275 Similarly, you can detach the current tab, with:
277 # moves the tab into a new OS window
279 map ctrl+f2 detach_tab
280 # asks which OS Window to move the tab into
281 map ctrl+f4 detach_tab ask
282 Finally, you can define a shortcut to close all windows in a tab other
284 than the currently active window:
285 map f9 close_other_windows_in_tab
287
289 ┌───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
290 │Action │ Shortcut │
291 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
292 │Copy to clipboard │ ctrl+shift+c (also ⌘+c on │
293 │ │ macOS) │
294 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
295 │Paste from clipboard │ ctrl+shift+v (also ⌘+v on │
296 │ │ macOS) │
297 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
298 │Paste from selection │ ctrl+shift+s │
299 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
300 │Increase font size │ ctrl+shift+equal (also ⌘++ │
301 │ │ on macOS) │
302 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
303 │Decrease font size │ ctrl+shift+minus (also ⌘+- │
304 │ │ on macOS) │
305 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
306 │Restore font size │ ctrl+shift+backspace (also │
307 │ │ ⌘+0 on macOS) │
308 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
309 │Toggle fullscreen │ ctrl+shift+f11 (also ^+⌘+f │
310 │ │ on macOS) │
311 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
312 │Toggle maximized │ ctrl+shift+f10 │
313 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
314 │Input unicode character │ ctrl+shift+u (also │
315 │ │ ^+⌘+space on macOS) │
316 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
317 │Click URL using the key‐ │ ctrl+shift+e │
318 │board │ │
319 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
320 │Reset the terminal │ ctrl+shift+delete │
321 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
322 │Pass current selection to │ ctrl+shift+o │
323 │program │ │
324 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
325 │Edit kitty config file │ ctrl+shift+f2 │
326 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
327 │Open a kitty shell │ ctrl+shift+escape │
328 └───────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
329 │Increase background opac‐ │ ctrl+shift+a>m │
332 │ity │ │
333 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
334 │Decrease background opac‐ │ ctrl+shift+a>l │
335 │ity │ │
336 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
337 │Full background opacity │ ctrl+shift+a>1 │
338 ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
339 │Reset background opacity │ ctrl+shift+a>d │
340 └───────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
341
343 See kitty.conf(5)
344
346 Kovid Goyal
347
349 2021, Kovid Goyal
3500.20.3 May 06, 2021 KITTY(1)