cheatbind 0.2.0

Wayland keyboard shortcuts overlay — parses your compositor config and displays a styled cheatsheet

cheatbind

A Wayland overlay that parses your compositor config and displays a styled keyboard shortcuts cheatsheet.

Instead of maintaining a separate shortcuts list, cheatbind reads your actual config file and renders an overlay with categorized keybindings, 3D keyboard-style key pills, and a multi-column layout.

Features

• Auto-parses compositor config — no manual keybinding list to maintain
• Auto-categorizes binds by action type (Applications, Navigation, Workspaces, etc.)
• 3D keyboard-style key pills with multi-column layout
• Live search — type to filter keybindings in real-time
• Merges duplicate keybindings (same action, different keys)
• Toggle behavior — run again to dismiss
• Custom CSS themes via ~/.config/cheatbind/style.css
• Fade-in animation
• --dry-run mode to preview parsed keybindings in terminal

Supported compositors

• niri — parses ~/.config/niri/config.kdl
• More compositors planned (Hyprland, Sway)

Install

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S cheatbind

This installs cheatbind and all dependencies (GTK4, gtk4-layer-shell, PyGObject).

PyPI

pipx install cheatbind

System dependencies must be installed separately:

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell

# Ubuntu/Debian (24.04+)
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 libgtk4-layer-shell-dev

From source

git clone https://github.com/Xhelliom/cheatbind.git
cd cheatbind
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e .
.venv/bin/cheatbind

Usage

# Auto-detect compositor and show overlay
cheatbind

# Force a specific compositor
cheatbind --compositor niri

# Use a custom config path
cheatbind --config ~/my-niri-config.kdl

# Preview parsed keybindings in terminal
cheatbind --dry-run

Running cheatbind while it's already showing will close the overlay (toggle behavior via PID file).

Press Escape or click anywhere to dismiss. Type to search/filter keybindings live.

niri keybinding example

Mod+Slash hotkey-overlay-title="Aide raccourcis" { spawn "cheatbind"; }

Config annotations (optional)

You can add markers in your niri config for custom sections and column breaks:

binds {
    //##! Applications
    Mod+T hotkey-overlay-title="Terminal" { spawn "alacritty"; }
    Mod+D hotkey-overlay-title="App launcher" { spawn "fuzzel"; }

    //#!
    //##! Navigation
    Mod+Left hotkey-overlay-title="Focus left" { focus-column-left; }

    // [hidden]
    Mod+Secret hotkey-overlay-title="Hidden bind" { do-something; }
}

• //##! Title — section header
• //#! — column break
• // [hidden] — exclude a bind from the overlay
• hotkey-overlay-title=null — also excludes a bind
• Without markers, cheatbind auto-categorizes binds by action type

Custom theme

Override the default style by creating ~/.config/cheatbind/style.css. It is loaded on top of the built-in CSS, so you only need to override what you want to change:

/* Example: different background and accent color */
.overlay { background-color: rgba(20, 20, 40, 0.9); }
.section-title { color: #ff9f43; }

NixOS

nix run github:Xhelliom/cheatbind

License

MIT