shortcuts.ts is data with no component around it, so it carries catalog keys and
ShortcutsModal resolves them -- same shape as the settings sections.
gen-platform-skill.ts also reads this registry to generate the agent-facing SKILL.md,
which docs:check validates. That doc stays in one language, so the generator resolves
against en-GB directly and throws if a key is missing rather than emitting a dot-path
into a file an agent will quote at somebody. The regenerated skill is byte-identical,
which is the check that keying the registry changed nothing an agent reads.
Fifth setting in three days: ctrl-space → shift-space → alt-space → ctrl-space → shift-space. Ctrl-space was
tried twice on the theory that preventDefault would beat Brave's address bar. It does not — that binding is
at the browser level and the key never reaches the handler. Recorded in the file so it is not tried a third
time.
Shift-space overrides two stock behaviours deliberately, and the owner's reasoning is the right one: it types
a space in a text field, and it scrolls a page UP when nothing has focus. Neither is worth a launcher.
Page-up-by-shift-space is a fossil, and typing a space is what the unmodified spacebar is for.
The cost is stated once in the file rather than argued again: typing in CAPS by holding shift instead of
using caps lock puts a shift-space between every word, which opens the launcher mid-sentence. If that turns
out to bite, the fix is a text-field guard — which this had for one day, and which is exactly what made the
launcher unopenable from the composer, where it is most wanted. Trading that back would be trading down.
Every other modifier must be absent: ctrl+shift+space is the theme browser, and one chord opening both is
the bug that needed a capture-phase listener to fix. Verified disjoint in the built bundle, both conditions
quoted from it rather than from the source.
Five moves in three days is the argument for making chords configurable rather than for choosing better ones,
which is why the ctrl+? registry names the implementing file for each.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Fourth chord for the launcher, and the last move is a return: ctrl-space → shift-space → alt-space →
ctrl-space. Every one was the owner naming a real collision, and this one is the interesting direction —
alt-space is the GNOME window menu, he rebound the desktop to keep it, disliked what he rebound it to, and
would rather move the app than the window manager.
ctrl-space was ruled out on 2026-08-20 as "focuses the address bar in Brave". That observation was made
before anything preventDefault'ed it, and the trade has changed: rebinding a browser is cheaper than
rebinding a desktop. Written down in the file, because if the address bar still wins the key never reaches
the handler and nothing in this repository can help — the fix would be in Brave.
`!ev.shiftKey && !ev.altKey` matters: ctrl+SHIFT+space is the theme browser, and one chord opening both is
the bug that needed a capture-phase listener to fix on the theme side. Verified in the built bundle that the
two conditions are disjoint.
CTRL+? renders every shortcut from a registry, ported in shape from vimazing's gameInfo.ts — controls
declared as data, help screen renders them. Its renderer was a recursive `any` walk, right for a game whose
help also carries rules and scoring; here the content is one shape, so the renderer is typed and boring and
the value is in state/shortcuts.ts.
The registry is deliberately NOT authoritative yet, and says so: the handlers still hold their own
conditions, so changing a chord here does not move it. Each entry names the file that implements it, so the
pair is one search apart. Making it the source of truth is the configurable-shortcuts work, and doing it now
would rewrite three handlers for nothing visible.
Also removed a line I put in the theme dropdown yesterday promising "alt+space to search every theme by
name". Themes are not Spotlight items — that was an instruction for a feature nobody built, sitting in the
UI as though it worked. It now points at ctrl+?, which exists. Two comments naming ctrl+alt+space for the
theme browser were corrected to ctrl+shift+space with the older chord noted as still accepted.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
pastilhas
