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learnharness/docs/keyboard.md
T
amosblomqvist ab5d5da9fb fix: keyboard round 3 — question walk clamps, Tab focus toggle, Alt+arrow isolation, search Esc
Owner live-test rounds on waves A/B:
- Alt+arrows no longer ALSO walk the question rows (dock ignores
  alt/meta/ctrl combos; session cycling keeps them exclusively)
- question walk clamps at the ends — no wrap (faster to navigate)
- plain Tab toggles focus between the thinking field and the answer
  rows (walked row by default); focus follows the walk while in the
  rows; Shift+Tab stays the global thinking-level cycle
- Esc in the sessions search blurs back to normal (claims the key so
  the window Esc chain does not fire)
- cheat sheet gains the Tab-in-question display entry
2026-09-18 08:34:46 +03:00

4.7 KiB

Keyboard shortcuts

Decided 2026-09-17 (owner key-map review after the first draft; the whole app must be usable with the keyboard only — voice first, keyboard as the second pillar of input).

Architecture

  • Registry: src/core/keyboard.ts — KEYBOARD_ACTIONS holds every action: { id, label, scope, binding }. The cheat sheet renders FROM the registry, so it can never list a non-functional shortcut.
  • Provider: components/keyboard-shortcuts.tsx — one window-level keydown listener (bubble phase, mounted once in AppShell). Normalizes keys to mod+d-style strings, resolves overrides, dispatches lh:kbd-<action-id> window CustomEvents. Surfaces listen for their own events (matching the pre-existing lh:chat-renamed seam style).
  • Persistence: overrides live under localStorage lh:keymap as {actionId: binding} merged over defaults. No editor yet — the settings milestone owns key map editing.
  • displayOnly entries: the registry also lists SURFACE-owned keys (the question dock's row machine) for the cheat sheet only — effectiveKeymap skips them so bare arrows can never leak to pages where the surface isn't mounted.

Rules

  • Tab is dead everywhere (owner decision: browser tab-focus navigation abandoned). Shift+Tab cycles the thinking level — also while typing in a field (modifier combos are the only keys that fire from typing surfaces; bare keys never do).
  • Esc priority chain: topmost popover → cheat sheet → cancel dictation (DISCARD — the transcript flush is Cmd+D/Stop only, owner round) → abort turn (local stream only — a server-side wake turn has no client request to abort). Every element/document-level Esc handler that acts calls e.stopPropagation() so the window chain never double-fires. The session search claims Esc to blur back to normal.
  • Focus ring: browser Tab-focus is gone, so :focus-visible stays unstyled (an earlier experimental outline was live-rejected — inputs showed a red ring on plain click-focus).

Key map (Wave A — global)

Action Binding Seam
Toggle dictation ⌘D lh:kbd-toggle-dictation (dictation.tsx)
Model selector ⌘K lh:kbd-open-model-picker (model-picker.tsx)
Cycle thinking level Shift+Tab lh:kbd-cycle-thinking (model-picker.tsx)
Toggle sidebar ⌘B lh:toggle-sidebar (sidebar.tsx)
Sessions search ⌘⇧F lh:kbd-sessions-search (sidebar.tsx)
Cycle session ⌥↑ / ⌥↓ lh:kbd-cycle-session-prev/next (sidebar.tsx)
Open selected session ⌥Enter lh:kbd-open-session (sidebar.tsx)
Jump to graph (home) ⌘G router.push in keyboard-shortcuts.tsx
New session ⌘N router.push in keyboard-shortcuts.tsx
Rename session F2 lh:kbd-rename-session (chat.tsx)
Cheat sheet ? keyboard-shortcuts.tsx
Find (graph: node search) ⌘F lh:kbd-find (graph-view.tsx; chat transcript search rides the same event when that feature lands)

Question dock row machine (Wave B, owner rounds 2026-09-17)

While a question is expanded, the dock owns ↑/↓/Space/Enter/Tab:

  • ↑/↓ walk every answerable row in order — options first, then the quiz's "I don't know" / the ask's "Other…" (never both) — clamped at the ends, no wrap (owner: faster to navigate when the walk stops). The walked row gets a subtle ring (bg-accent/40) and scrollIntoView.
  • Space acts on the walked row exactly like a click: multi toggles, single displaces; Other also focuses its inline input for typing.
  • Enter submits once an answer exists (canSubmit).
  • Tab (plain) toggles focus between the thinking field and the answer rows — nothing else (owner round 3). From the thinking side it focuses the walked (or first) row; from the rows it returns to the thinking field. Focus follows the walk while the user is in the rows, so focused and walked never diverge. Shift+Tab is NOT the dock's — the global thinking-level cycle owns it everywhere.
  • Guards: keys from a typing surface keep their native meaning (arrows move the caret, space types — the thinking field is never hijacked), and modifier combos are never the dock's — Alt+arrows cycle sessions without ALSO walking the question rows (owner round 3). The listener lives only while the dock is expanded — collapsed, the bar's native Enter expands it.

Status

  • Wave A (global plumbing + shortcuts above) — landed, CDP-verified.
  • Wave B (question row machine) — landed, CDP-verified.
  • Wave C remainder: ⌘F chat transcript search (new feature, needs its own design pass), ⌘I import notes on graph. ⌘F graph node search shipped early (owner live-tested the gap).