kiss-editor 0.5.1

KISS — keep it simple, stupid.

A small terminal editor built with Textual. It opens files and folders, with syntax highlighting, a file tree and undo/redo. Just an editor — no LSP, no plugins, no ambitions to become an IDE.

About & status

KISS is early-stage software. It's not a replacement for nano or vim — just a small editor that tries to stay simple and useful. It's for learning, and for the moments where a tiny no-nonsense editor is enough. Some things are still missing (see TODO).

Install

for unix systems:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/levk-m/kiss/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

via package managers:

[uv tool / pipx] install kiss-editor

or from source (requires Python 3.12+ and uv):

git clone https://github.com/levk-m/kiss.git
cd kiss
uv sync
uv run kiss

Or run directly without cloning:

uvx kiss-editor

Usage

kiss <file>         Edit a file or create new
kiss <dir>          Browse a directory
kiss .              Open current directory

Features

The usual editor essentials are here — undo/redo, clipboard, line numbers, word wrap, cursor line highlight. On top of that KISS adds:

• File tree — browse and open files with custom icons per file type
• Syntax highlighting — auto-detected from the file
• Go to line (Ctrl+G) — enter a number, jump straight there
• Command palette (Ctrl+P) — fuzzy-find files, switch themes
• Templates (Ctrl+T) — insert reusable snippets from ~/.kiss_templates/ (a file per snippet, see examples/kiss_templates/greet.py)
• Image viewer — open images directly in the terminal (requires Kitty, Sixel or iTerm support)
• Config — ~/.kiss_editor.ini, open with Ctrl+O
• Help dialog — Ctrl+H
• Splash screen — ASCII logo on startup
• Update check — notifies when a newer version is available on exit (takes about a second)
• Enter handling — auto-indent to match the current line on newline

For keybindings and commands, see USAGE.md.