confhelp

Find and edit your keybindings instantly.

The Problem

Over time you accumulate tmux bindings, zsh aliases, vim mappings, custom functions - scattered across dozens of files. You know you set something up, but where?

Two pain points:

1. Finding bindings - "What key did I bind for git status?" "Do I have an alias for docker compose?"
2. Editing bindings - You remember it exists, now you need to change it. Which file? What line? grep → open → scroll → find → edit. Every. Single. Time.

The Solution

confhelp -b ~/dotfiles --edit

Fuzzy search all your bindings → select one → opens $EDITOR at exact file:line.

Install

pip install confhelp

Usage

# Output all bindings (uses base_dirs from config)
confhelp

# Interactive fzf selection
confhelp --select

# Select and open in $EDITOR at line
confhelp --edit

# JSON output
confhelp -f json

# Override base directory
confhelp -b ~/other-dotfiles

# Show keys defined more than once
confhelp --conflicts

# Report lines that look like bindings but failed to parse, plus any runtime
# bindings a query engine had to drop for lack of a source location
confhelp --check

Example output:

[tmux]   prefix+g   display-popup -w 80%...   .tmux.conf:42
[alias]  gs         git status                .zsh_aliases:15
[bind]   ^[e        edit-command-line         .zshrc:89

The --edit flag drops you directly into the file at the exact line. Change the binding, save, done.

Binding Sources

confhelp supports two ways to extract bindings:

1. Regex Parsing (data-driven)

Define patterns in TOML to extract bindings from config files. Works for any text-based config format - tmux, zsh, aliases, etc. You specify paths, regex, and capture groups.

2. Structured Parsing (data-driven)

For configs that store bindings in structured formats (TOML arrays, YAML lists, JSON), use the structured parser. It navigates the parsed data directly - no regex needed.

[zledit-actions]
parser = "toml"
paths = ["~/.config/zledit/config.toml"]
binding_path = "actions"
key = "binding"
desc = "description"
type = "zledit"

Parses configs like:

[[actions]]
binding = 'ctrl-o'
description = 'edit'
script = '~/.config/zledit/scripts/edit.sh'

3. Query Engines (code-driven)

Some tools (like nvim) store bindings in ways that can't be reliably parsed with regex - runtime keymaps, plugin-generated bindings, multi-line table formats. Query engines run the tool itself to extract bindings.

Currently available: nvim (runs nvim headlessly to query keymaps) and tmuxinator (reads session files).

The nvim engine needs a literal desc at the call site. nvim reports no source location for a Lua keymap: lnum is 0 and sid collapses to init.lua for anything loaded through require. So the engine recovers a location by grepping your config for the description as written, and a binding it cannot place is left out, since there would be nothing for --edit to jump to. That filter is what keeps several hundred plugin bindings out of the listing, but it also hides your own binding if its desc reached nvim through a variable:

-- invisible to confhelp: the literal never appears in a file
local set = function(lhs, rhs, desc)
  vim.keymap.set("n", lhs, rhs, { desc = desc })
end
set("<leader>ff", cmd, "Find files")

-- visible: the call site spells the description out
set("<leader>ff", cmd, { desc = "Find files" })

confhelp --check reports how many runtime bindings were dropped this way. Plugin bindings are expected in that list; yours are not. To see only your own:

confhelp --check 2>/dev/null | grep '^\[nvim\] <leader>'

Descriptions should be unique. The index is keyed by description text, so two bindings sharing one resolve to the same location (the first in sorted file order).

Architecture note: Query engines are currently hardcoded. Future versions may support registering custom extractors - any code that returns (type, key, desc, file, line) tuples could become a binding source. This would allow community-contributed engines for tools like vim, emacs, i3, sway, etc.

Config Format

Define parsers in TOML. Each section describes how to extract bindings from a set of files:

# Default directories to search (no -b needed)
base_dirs = ["~/dotfiles", "~/work-dotfiles"]

# Query engines - run external tools to get bindings
# Available: "nvim" (queries nvim headlessly for keymaps)
query_engines = ["nvim"]

# tmux: bind [-n] <key> <command>
# Example: bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf
#          bind-key -n M-l popup -E lazygit
# Captures: (1) key=r or M-l, (2) command
[tmux]
paths = [".tmux.conf"]
match_line = "^bind"
regex = 'bind(?:-key)?\s+(?:-n\s+)?(\S+)(.*)'
key_group = 1
desc_group = 2
type = "tmux"
truncate = 100

# zsh alias: alias [-gs] <name>=<command>
# Example: alias gs='git status'
#          alias -g C='| xsel --clipboard'
# Captures: (1) name=gs or C, (2) command
[alias]
paths = [".zsh_aliases", ".zsh_claude"]
regex = "alias\\s+(?:-[gs]\\s+)?([^=]+)=(.*)"
key_group = 1
desc_group = 2
type = "alias"
strip_quotes = true

# zsh-abbr: "abbrev" 'expansion'
# Example: "ga" 'git add'
# Captures: (1) abbrev=ga, (2) expansion=git add
[abbrev]
paths = [".zsh_abbreviations"]
match_line = '".*"'
regex = '''"([^"]+)"\s+'([^']+)''''
key_group = 1
desc_group = 2
type = "abbrev"

# nvim query engine options
[engine.nvim]
truncate = 60
path = ".config/nvim"      # where to grep for desc literals, relative to base_dir

# tmuxinator query engine options
[engine.tmuxinator]
path = "~/.config/tmuxinator"

# nvim via regex (alternative to query engine - parses source files directly)
# Only catches single-line vim.keymap.set calls with inline desc
[nvim-regex]
paths = [".config/nvim/lua/**/*.lua"]
match_line = "vim.keymap.set"
regex = 'vim\.keymap\.set\([^,]+,\s*"([^"]+)".*desc\s*=\s*"([^"]+)"'
key_group = 1
desc_group = 2
type = "nvim"

Config Options

Top-level options:

Option	Description
base_dirs	Default directories to search
query_engines	List of query engines to enable (e.g., ["nvim"])

Section options (regex parsing):

Option	Description
paths	List of files or glob patterns (e.g., **/*.lua)
regex	Pattern with capture groups for key/desc (Python re syntax)
key_group	Capture group number for the key
desc_group	Capture group number for description
match_line	Only process lines matching this pattern
skip_comment	Skip lines starting with #
truncate	Max length for description
strip_quotes	Remove surrounding quotes from desc
desc_literal	Use fixed string as description
desc_from_comment	Extract desc from trailing # comment

Section options (structured parsing):

Option	Description
parser	Format: toml, yaml, or json
paths	List of config files to parse
binding_path	Dot notation path to bindings array (e.g., bindings.keys)
key	Field name for binding key (supports field1+field2 to combine)
desc	Field name for description
type	Binding type label
truncate	Max length for description

Regex Tips

Patterns use Python's re module. Test patterns at regex101.com (select Python flavor).

Quick CLI test:

echo "bind r reload" | python -c "import re,sys; m=re.search(r'bind\s+(\S+)\s+(.*)', sys.stdin.read()); print(m.groups() if m else 'no match')"

Output Formats

• pipe (default): pipe-delimited [type]|key|desc|file:line
• tsv: Tab-separated
• json: JSON array

The pipe format works well with column -t -s'|' for aligned display.

Integration Examples

confhelp outputs text. How you display it is up to you.

fzf with Multiple Actions

Use --expect to handle different keys. Ctrl+P extracts and opens paths from entries:

result=$(confhelp -b ~/dotfiles | column -t -s'|' | fzf \
    --header='Enter=edit | Ctrl-P=open path | Ctrl-O=copy' \
    --expect=ctrl-p,ctrl-o)

key=$(echo "$result" | head -1)
selection=$(echo "$result" | tail -1)

case "$key" in
    ctrl-p)
        # Extract path from selection (supports /, ~, $HOME prefixes)
        path=$(echo "$selection" | grep -oE '(/[^ ]+|~[^ ]+|\$HOME[^ ]+)' | head -1)
        path="${path/#\~/$HOME}"
        [[ -e "$path" ]] && $EDITOR "$path"
        ;;
    ctrl-o)
        echo "$selection" | xsel -ib
        ;;
    *)
        # Enter: parse file:line and open in editor
        file_line=$(echo "$selection" | awk '{print $NF}')
        file="${file_line%:*}"
        line="${file_line##*:}"
        $EDITOR "+$line" "$file"
        ;;
esac

Alacritty Popup

Spawn a centered popup window:

alacritty --class popup -e bash -c 'confhelp -b ~/dotfiles --edit'

See examples/alacritty-popup.sh for a complete implementation with Ctrl+P path support.

tmux Popup

tmux display-popup -w 80% -h 80% -E 'confhelp -b ~/dotfiles --select'

Rofi/dmenu

confhelp -b ~/dotfiles | rofi -dmenu

Acknowledgments

Inspired by Extracto.

License

MIT