Ubuntu Manpage: kitten-quick-access-terminal - A quick access terminal window that you can bring up instantly with a

Name

       kitten-quick-access-terminal  -  A  quick  access  terminal window that you can bring up instantly with a
       keypress or a command.

Overview

       Added in version 0.42.0: See here for what platforms it works on <#panel-compat>.

       This kitten can be used to make a quick access terminal, that appears and disappears at a key  press.  To
       do so use the following command:

          kitten quick-access-terminal

       Run  this  command in a terminal, and a quick access kitty window will show up at the top of your screen.
       Run it again, and the window will be hidden.

       To make the terminal appear and disappear at a key press:

       In Linux, simply assign the above command to a global shortcut in your window manager. In  macOS,  go  to
       System  Preferences->Keyboard->Keyboard  Shortcuts->Services->General  and  set  a shortcut for the Quick
       access to kitty entry.

Configuration

       You  can  configure  the  appearance  and  behavior  of  the  quick   access   window   by   creating   a
       quick-access-terminal.conf  file  in  your kitty config folder <#confloc>. In particular, you can use the
       kitty_conf option to change various kitty settings, just for the quick access window.

       Note:
          This kitten uses the panel kitten <> under the hood. You can use the  techniques  described  there  <#
          remote-control-panel>  for  remote controlling the quick access window, remember to add kitty_override
          allow_remote_control=socket-only     and      kitty_override      listen_on=unix:/tmp/whatever      to
          quick-access-terminal.conf.

       See below for the supported configuration directives:

Window appearance

lines

lines 25

The number of lines shown in the panel. Ignored for background, centered, and vertical panels. If it has
the suffix px then it sets the height of the panel in pixels instead of lines.

columns

columns 80

The number of columns shown in the panel. Ignored for background, centered, and horizontal panels. If it
has the suffix px then it sets the width of the panel in pixels instead of columns.

edge

edge top

Which edge of the screen to place the panel on. Note that some window managers (such as i3) do not
support placing docked windows on the left and right edges. The value background means make the panel the
"desktop wallpaper". Note that when using sway if you set a background in your sway config it will cover
the background drawn using this kitten. Additionally, there are three more values: center, center-sized
and none. The value center anchors the panel to all sides and covers the entire display (on macOS the
part of the display not covered by titlebar and dock). The panel can be shrunk and placed using the
margin parameters. The value none anchors the panel to the top left corner and should be placed using the
margin parameters. Its size is set by lines and columns. The value center-sized is just like none except
that the panel is centered instead of in the top left corner and the margins have no effect.

background_opacity

background_opacity 0.85

The background opacity of the window. This works the same as the kitty option of the same name, it is
present here as it has a different default value for the quick access terminal.

hide_on_focus_loss

hide_on_focus_loss no

Hide the window when it loses keyboard focus automatically. Using this option will force focus_policy to
on-demand.

grab_keyboard

grab_keyboard no

Grab the keyboard. This means global shortcuts defined in the OS will be passed to kitty instead. Useful
if you want to create an OS modal window. How well this works depends on the OS/window manager/desktop
environment. On Wayland it works only if the compositor implements the inhibit-keyboard-shortcuts
protocol <https://wayland.app/protocols/keyboard-shortcuts-inhibit-unstable-v1>. On macOS Apple doesn't
allow applications to grab the keyboard without special permissions, so it doesn't work.

margin_left

margin_left 0

Set the left margin for the panel, in pixels. Has no effect for right edge panels. Only works on macOS
and Wayland compositors that supports the wlr layer shell protocol.

margin_right

margin_right 0

Set the right margin for the panel, in pixels. Has no effect for left edge panels. Only works on macOS
and Wayland compositors that supports the wlr layer shell protocol.

margin_top

margin_top 0

Set the top margin for the panel, in pixels. Has no effect for bottom edge panels. Only works on macOS
and Wayland compositors that supports the wlr layer shell protocol.

margin_bottom

margin_bottom 0

Set the bottom margin for the panel, in pixels. Has no effect for top edge panels. Only works on macOS
and Wayland compositors that supports the wlr layer shell protocol.

kitty_conf

Path to config file to use for kitty when drawing the window. Can be specified multiple times. By
default, the normal kitty.conf is used. Relative paths are resolved with respect to the kitty config
directory.

kitty_override

Override individual kitty configuration options, can be specified multiple times. Syntax: kitty_override
name=value. For example: kitty_override font_size=20.

app_id

app_id kitty-quick-access

On Wayland set the namespace of the layer shell surface. On X11 set the WM_CLASS assigned to the quick
access window. (Linux only)

output_name

The panel can only be displayed on a single monitor (output) at a time. This allows you to specify which
output is used, by name. If not specified the compositor will choose an output automatically, typically
the last output the user interacted with or the primary monitor. Run kitten panel --output-name list to
get a list of available outputs. Use listjson for a json encoded output. Note that on Wayland the output
can only be set at panel creation time, it cannot be changed after creation, nor is there anyway to
display a single panel on all outputs. Please complain to the Wayland developers about this.

start_as_hidden

start_as_hidden no

Whether to start the quick access terminal hidden. Useful if you are starting it as part of system
startup.

focus_policy

focus_policy exclusive

On a Wayland compositor that supports the wlr layer shell protocol, specify the focus policy for keyboard
interactivity with the panel. Please refer to the wlr layer shell protocol documentation for more
details. Note that different Wayland compositors behave very differently with exclusive, your mileage may
vary. On macOS, exclusive and on-demand are currently the same.

Source code for quick_access_terminal

       The source code for this kitten is available on GitHub  <https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/tree/master/
       kittens/quick_access_terminal>.

Command line interface

kitten quick_access_terminal [options] [cmdline-to-run ...]

A quick access terminal window that you can bring up instantly with a keypress or a command.

Options
--config <CONFIG>, -c <CONFIG>
Specify a path to the configuration file(s) to use. All configuration files are merged onto the
builtin quick-access-terminal.conf, overriding the builtin values. This option can be specified
multiple times to read multiple configuration files in sequence, which are merged. Use the special
value NONE to not load any config file.

If this option is not specified, config files are searched for in the order:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kitty/quick-access-terminal.conf, ~/.config/kitty/quick-access-terminal.conf,
$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/kitty/quick-access-terminal.conf. The first one that exists is used as the config
file.

If the environment variable KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY <#envvar-KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY> is specified,
that directory is always used and the above searching does not happen.

If /etc/xdg/kitty/quick-access-terminal.conf exists, it is merged before (i.e. with lower
priority) than any user config files. It can be used to specify system-wide defaults for all
users. You can use either - or /dev/stdin to read the config from STDIN.

--override <OVERRIDE>, -o <OVERRIDE>
Override individual configuration options, can be specified multiple times. Syntax: name=value.
For example: -o lines=12

--detach [=no]
Detach from the controlling terminal, if any, running in an independent child process, the parent
process exits immediately.

--detached-log <DETACHED_LOG>
Path to a log file to store STDOUT/STDERR when using --detach

--instance-group <INSTANCE_GROUP>
The unique name of this quick access terminal Use a different name if you want multiple such
terminals. Default: quick-access

--debug-rendering [=no]
For debugging interactions with the compositor/window manager.

--debug-input [=no]
For debugging interactions with the compositor/window manager.

Sample quick-access-terminal.conf

       You  can  download  a  sample  quick-access-terminal.conf  file  with  all  default settings and comments
       describing each setting by clicking: sample quick-access-terminal.conf.

Author

       Kovid Goyal

Copyright

       2025, Kovid Goyal

0.44.0                                            Nov 26, 2025                   kitten-quick-access-terminal(1)