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Yabai Configurator

Warning This repositpory is no longer maintained. I decided to use Scriptkit as vehicle to automate my screen setup, so this repository is officially deprecated and I won't maintain it any longer.

Idea

With this cli-tool, I want to make working with yabai, skhd and Übersicht easier by providing a single configuration file in combination with powerful CLI Commands that add some logic on top of yabai - for example predefined window-layouts that can be activated by a single hotkey.

How to run

npx yco

This will start an interactive CLI where you can choose all tasks and configurations.

You can also see all possible tasks and cli-flags by using the --help:

npx yco --help
npx yco apply-layout --help

Install globally

You can also install yco globaly and then use it's bin without npx:

npm install -g yco
yco --help

Requirements

You need to have at least yabai and skhd installed.

YCO Configuration

Almost every command needs to be configured with the yco.config.json. It is the heart of this tool.

Location

On default, the config will be read from:

~/.config/yabai/yco.config.json

You can also pass a specific configuration with the --config-Option which will take precedence over the default path:

npx yco --config custom/path/to/config.json <task>

Current Features

create-configs

yco create-configs

Create all configs for the other tools (yabai, skhd, ubersicht) from your central yco.config.json.

Currently, this only adds a skhd-config creating a separate file ~/.config/yabai/yco.skhd.conf and loading it within ~/.skhdrc. The yco.skhd.conf is populated with a mode-command that lets you switch between your configured layouts (see apply-layout) with two shortcuts.

switch-focus

yco switch-focus --app "Firefox"
# Alternatively, use the more performant method
yco-switch-focus "Firefox"

Switch the focus to the next window of the specified app.

If the app is on a different space, focus will be switched without the usual Mac OS X animations (so no distractions).

If there is more than one window of the app, it will focus them subsequently, ordered by their yabai id, so you can tab through them.

Configure SwitchFocus Hotkeys

You can configure SKHD-Hotkeys in your yco.config.json:

{
  "switchFocus": [
    {
      "triggerKey": "cmd - 1",
      "app": "Firefox"
    },
    {
      "triggerKey": "cmd - 2",
      "app": "Code"
    }
  ]
}
  • app: Needs to match the app-Field of the yabai-window object (use yabai -m query --windows to get them)
  • triggerKey: Can be any valid SKHD-Keysm.

When applied with yco create-configs, this will generate the necessary SKHD-Configs to focus the windows when pressing they triggerKey(s).

E.g. in the example above, pressing cmd - 1 will focs the Firefox Browser.

apply-layout

yco apply-layout --name nameOfLayout

Apply a preconfigured layout. A layout defines which windows are supposed to be in which spaces. The command will use yabai to compare the current location of all windows and move them to the configured spaces accordingly while creating all necessary an deleting all unused spaces.

Configure Layout Modes

A real-world layout configuration might look like this:

{
  "layoutModeTriggerKey": "alt - s",
  "layouts": {
    "nameOfLayout": {
      "triggerKey": "n",
      "nonManaged": "allInOneSpace",
      "spaces": [[
        ["iTerm2", "Code", "Firefox"],
        ["Google Chrome", "Slack", "Microsoft Outlook"],
        ["Spotify"]
      ]]
    },
}

Layout-Mode

The Layout-Mode is basically just a predefined skhd-config that lets you apply the configured layouts with a simple two-setp hotkey-combination. It will get activated once you execute yco create-config (see create-config).

E.g. to apply the layout configured above, you'd have to press:

  • The layoutModeTriggerKey: alt - s
  • The triggerKey of the target layout:n

To learn more about modes, read What are skhd-modes? and What are yco-modes?

Layouts

The spaces Property is a structure consiting of nested arrays, where:

  • The outer-most array is the layout containg...
  • ... arrays representing displays containing ...
  • ... arrays that represent spaces containing ...
  • ... strings of apps (alias windows) that are supposed to be placed on that space.
spaces: [
  // display1
  [
    ["Window 1 on Space 1", "Window 2 on Space 1" ],
    ["Window 3 on Space 2"]
  ],
  // display 2
  [
    ["window 4 on Space 3 on Display 2"]
    ...
  ]
]

The Strings representing the windows have to match with the app-Field of Yabai's window objects. You can query all opened windows with yabai -m query --windows.

The nonManaged configuration decides how to treat all currently opened windows which are not found in the spaces configuration of the layout (hence the name "unmanaged"). It can be one of three options:

  1. allInOneSpace: All unmanaged windows will be placed in one space which is placed last on the main display.
  2. allInOwnSpace: For every unmanaged window, a new space is created on the main display.
  3. leaveUntouched: Will leave all unmanaged windows exactly where they are.

Please note: Currently, the order order of windows on a space is not guaranteed to be as configured (this is a bit harder to implement with yabai commands). This is a planned feature, however.

Q & A

What are skhd-modes?

Even though your keyboard has a lot of different keys, finding a free hotkey-combination can sometimes be really cumbersome.

That's why SKHD created modes. A mode lets your overwrite or overload certain hotkeys with different actions - depending on the currently active mode.

This is best explained with an example. Have a look at this skhd-config:

# Keypress in default mode
alt - l : echo "Default Mode"
# Define the "layoutMode"
:: layoutMode @
# Activate layoutMode with alt-s
alt - s ; layoutMode
layoutMode < alt - l : echo "Layout Mode"
# Go back to default mode with "escape"
layoutMode < escape ; default
  • When pressing alt - l, "Default Mode" will be echoed
  • When pressing alt - s, the layoutMode is activated
  • Now pressing alt - l again will echo "Layout Mode"
  • Pressing escape exits the mode again.
  • Pressingalt - l now will again echo "Default Mode"

This is great to have the same hotkeys in different contexts - thus, you don't need to invent new hotkeys over and over.

What are yco-modes?

There are certain actions that do not need a "first class" hotkey-combination as they do not get executed that often.

For example apply-layout is something that you probably only need a few times a day. I'd be a waste to have to find a unique hotkey-combination for every defined layout.

That's why modes in YCO do not only override hotkey-combinations once activated, they always automatically come back to the default-mode once an action has been taken.

The idea is:

  1. Activate the mode
  2. Execute an action within that mode and immidiately come back to default mode

This means that you need to press two hotkey-combinations to use apply-layout - however, this gives you two big advantages:

  1. You only need one hotkey-combination in your default layout
  2. You can give easy to remember hotkeys to every layout, e.g. the first letter of the layout. As the layoutMode is exited immidiately, you can even define just simple letters.

Both makes it easier to find free keys as well as remember those keys.

Exiting a mode in skhd is done by appending a command to simulate an escape-keypress to every mode-action.

Full Configuration Example

See exampleConfig.json.