Emulating Tmux's send-prefix to require pressing the prefix-key twice

[vendion]

First, I know this is a workflow question and there is a simple solution of picking a different key/key combo to use as my prefix for Kitty, but I'm lazy and would like to avoid that if possible.

That said, I am a long time tmux user that, like a lot of people, remapped the prefix key from ctrl+b to ctrl+a. The catch here is that the ctrl+a prefix conflicts with the ctrl+a keybind in vim/neovim to increment numbers (and optionally dates thanks to tpope). Luckily, tmux has a solution to this, if you do a keybind like bind C-a send-prefix then pressing just ctrl+a will get passed to the shell/application while pressing ctrl+a ctrl+a actually gets handled by tmux.

Would it be possible to do the same within Kitty so I can use keybinds like ctrl+a>c, but actually have to hit ctrl+a twice? I tried using map ctrl+a remote_control send-text "[ESC]A" but that didn't seem to do the trick.

Here are some examples keybinds to show what I am using it for:

  map ctrl+a remote_control send-text "[ESC]A"
  map ctrl+a>c launch --type=tab --cwd=current
  map ctrl+a>n launch --cwd=current
  map ctrl+a>s launch --cwd=current --location=hsplit
  map ctrl+a>v launch --cwd=current --location=vsplit

I am open to better/cleaner ways to do this as well.

[kovidgoyal]

I dont follow your question. You want to press ctrl+a twice to send the ctrl+a key to the terminal program? If so do: map ctrl+a>ctrl+a send_key ctrl+a https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/actions/#action-send_key Although you should know kitty is a lot smarter than tmux, you can make conditional mappings that only take effect when a particular program is running or similar, see https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/mapping/#conditional-mappings-depending-on-the-state-of-the-focused-window

[vendion]

Well it was more the other way around. So say I had neovim open and wanted to increment a number/date, so I press ctrl+a to do so. Now with neovim still open I want to launch a new split, so then I press ctrl+a>n. The problem is both Kitty and NeoVim have a keybind for ctrl+a but which one acts on it?

The solution with tmux was to make it so that ctrl+a just goes through and NeoVim can act on it, but ctrl+a>ctrl+a gets handled by tmux.

The conditional mapping feature looks promising, but not quite what I'm wanting, as it just unbinds if the set condition is true. If I could make it so that normally pressing ctrl+a>n launches a new split in Kitty, but if inside neovim, then I need to press ctrl+a>ctrl+a>n to open the split letting neovim still act on ctrl+a, that would work.

[kovidgoyal]

On Thu, May 08, 2025 at 09:24:35PM -0700, Adam Jimerson wrote: Well it was more the other way around. So say I had neovim open and wanted to increment a number/date, so I press `ctrl+a` to do so. Now with neovim still open I want to launch a new split, so then I press `ctrl+a>n`. The problem is both Kitty and NeoVim have a keybind for `ctrl+a` but which one acts on it? The solution with tmux was to make it so that `ctrl+a` just goes through and NeoVim can act on it, but `ctrl+a>ctrl+a` gets handled by tmux. The conditional mapping feature looks promising, but not quite what I'm wanting, as it just unbinds if the set condition is true. If I could make it so that normally pressing `ctrl+a>n` launches a new split in Kitty, but if inside neovim, then I need to press `ctrl+a>ctrl+a>n` to open the split letting neovim still act on `ctrl+a`, that would work.

You cannot both have ctrl+a act as a shortcut and as a prefix, for obvious reasons. The only way to implement that would be via a delay so that if a leader key of a prefix mapping is not followed by another key for some time, it gets treated as complete keypress. I could implement that, but I dont see the point, it just means ctrl+a becomes slow. Better to use orthogonal mappings.

[vendion]

Yeah, that is why I was asking about reproducing the same workaround that I have with Tmux. I guess the easiest solution that doesn't involve massively rebuilding muscle memory would be to let Kitty handle ctrl+a events and use this keybinding for neovim:

map ctrl+a>ctrl+a send_key ctrl+a

It's basically the reverse of my tmux+neovim solution but should work.