Hotkeys and aliases

A hotkey runs a command from anywhere on your Mac without opening the bar; an alias is a short word that finds a command in the bar and runs it with ⇥.

The keys that open Saiki

Saiki starts with two ways to open and close the bar: a double tap of Right ⌘, and ⌥Space as a backup. Change either in Settings → General → Open Saiki: select Open Saiki or Open Saiki (backup), press ↵, then press the new keys.

Set a hotkey

There are two ways to give something a hotkey.

From the bar

Find the command, window command or app in the bar and select it.
Press ⌘K and open Configure Command.
Choose Set Hotkey… and press the keys you want. Saiki confirms the new hotkey and closes the menu.

From Settings

Open Settings → Hotkeys. It lists a row for each of Saiki's commands, every window command, every Window Strip command and every system command, in four cards: Commands, Window Management, Window Strip and System Controls. Select a row, press ↵, and press the keys. Type a name to find a row quickly.

Four hotkeys live only on their feature's own page: Clipboard History on Clipboard, the picker on Emoji & Symbols, and Toggle Microphone Mute and Switch Sound Output on Sound. Tools like Take Screenshot, Record Screen, Scratchpad, Shelf, Convert Files, Task Manager and Monitors appear both on Hotkeys and on their own page; it's the same hotkey, so changing it in either place changes both.

A favourite Bluetooth device can have a hotkey that connects or disconnects it. Set it on Settings → Bluetooth, in the Favorite Hotkeys card, or with ⌘K → Set Hotkey… on the device in Bluetooth Devices. See Bluetooth.

What makes a valid hotkey

A key with ⌘, ⌥ or ⌃ (and ⇧ if you like), such as ⌥⌘L. Plain keys aren't allowed, since they'd get in the way of typing.
Or a double tap of a right-side modifier: Right ⌘, Right ⌥, Right ⌃ or Right ⇧, pressed twice quickly with nothing else in between.

While Saiki is recording, every other hotkey is paused so you can press any keys. esc cancels without changing anything.

Saiki won't take keys that are already in use. If another command has them, it says which one; if macOS uses them (for Spotlight, screenshots, input sources, Mission Control and so on), it says that too. Pick different keys, or change the other one first.

Change or remove a hotkey

In Settings, select the row and press ⌘⌫ to reset it. For most commands that means no hotkey; for Open Saiki it means the original keys.
In the bar, ⌘K → Configure Command shows Change Hotkey with the current keys, and Remove Hotkey.

How hotkeys behave

Hotkeys work everywhere, whether the bar is open or not.
An app's hotkey opens the app, or hides it if it's already in front.
The Clipboard History and Emoji & Symbols hotkeys open their view in the bar; press the hotkey again to close it.
Commands that show something in the bar (Task Manager, the Volume Mixer, Bluetooth Devices) open the bar on that view. Commands that act straight away (a window command, Toggle Mute) just run. System commands that ask first, like Restart or Empty Trash, open the bar on their confirmation card.
A favourite Bluetooth device's hotkey connects or disconnects it without opening the bar.
Hiding a row from search turns its hotkey off too, and a feature that's off ignores its hotkeys.
Window commands have no hotkeys until you give them some. See Window management.

Aliases

An alias is a short word you choose for an app, one of Saiki's commands, a window command or a setting. Type the alias and that row comes up; press ⇥ and it runs. The right end of the search field shows the row's name next to ⇥, so you know what will happen.

Ask AI comes with one alias already: type ai and press ⇥.

Set an alias

Select the row in the bar and press ⌘K.
Open Configure Command and choose Set Alias… (or Change Alias).
Type the alias in the menu's field and press ↵. To remove an alias, clear the field and press ↵.

Aliases are saved in lowercase. Saiki refuses an alias that another row already has, or one of the words that already opens a scope with ⇥, like files or tabs (see Scopes); it tells you why.

Customize an app

Settings → Applications → Your Apps collects everything you've changed about apps. Choose Customize an App… to set up a new one:

Type the app's name. Saiki finds the best match as you type.
Press ⇥ to move to the alias field and type an alias, if you want one.
Turn on hiding if you want the app out of search, or record a hotkey for it.
Press ↵ to save.

Each app in the list shows what you changed: its alias, Hidden, its hotkey, and searches it won't show for. Select one and press ↵ to edit it, or ⌘⌫ to put it back to normal (its alias, hiding and hotkey all go).

Shape what search shows

The same Configure Command menu has a few more tools. On files, folders, web pages, tabs and System Settings items, Reset Ranking and Don't Show for appear directly in ⌘K.

Action	What it does
Hide from Search	The row never shows in search again.
Don't Show for “…”	The row stops showing for exactly what you typed, but still shows for other searches.
Reset Ranking	Forgets how often you opened it, so it ranks as if new.
Open Settings	Goes to the row's own settings page.
Copy Deeplink	Copies a link that opens this command in Saiki, for use in scripts or other apps.

To bring back something you hid:

An app: open Settings → Applications, select the app and press ↵ to edit it, turn hiding off and press ↵ to save. Or press ⌘⌫ to undo all your changes to it.
Anything else: open Settings → Search → Changed in Search, select it and press ↵ to show it in search again, or ⌘⌫ to undo all your changes to it.

Deeplinks are safe to share. Any web page can open a link, so a deeplink only opens a command that shows a view in the bar. For anything that acts, like opening an app or running a window command, the link opens the bar with that command selected, and you press ↵ yourself.

Links

Scripts, Shortcuts and other apps can drive the bar with saiki:// links, opened with open "saiki://…" in Terminal or any app that opens URLs:

Link	What it does
`saiki://toggle`	Opens the bar, or closes it if it's open.
`saiki://show`	Opens the bar with your last search. Add `?fresh=1` for an empty bar.
`saiki://hide`	Closes the bar. Add `?clear=1` to forget the search too.
`saiki://query?text=…`	Opens the bar with that text typed.
`saiki://settings?page=…`	Opens Settings, on a page if you name one, such as `?page=clipboard`.
`saiki://permissions`	Opens the Permissions screen.
`saiki://agents`	Opens the Agents view.
`saiki://usage`	Opens AI Usage.
`saiki://run?command=…`	Runs a command, as Copy Deeplink gives it.

The same rule applies as for deeplinks: a link only opens views by itself. Anything that acts comes up selected, waiting for your ↵.