neru

README

Neru

Master your keyboard, refine your workflow

Navigate macOS without touching your mouse - keyboard-driven productivity at its finest 🖱️⌨️

Installation • Quick Start • Documentation • Contributing

Hints demo • Grid demo

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What is Neru?

Neru (練る) - a Japanese word meaning "to refine, polish, and master through practice" - is a free, open-source keyboard navigation tool for macOS. Navigate, click, and scroll anywhere on your screen without ever touching your mouse.

Grid-based navigation is the foundation of Neru. Unlike hint-based systems that rely on accessibility trees (which break in Electron apps, Chromium, Mission Control, menubar items), Neru's grid approach:

• ✅ Works everywhere - native apps, Electron, browsers, menubar, Mission Control, Dock
• ✅ Fast and reliable - no waiting for accessibility tree traversal
• ✅ Simple to maintain - no complex app-specific compatibility layers
• ✅ Always accurate - clicks exactly where you see the hint

Why Neru?

• 🆓 Always free - No paywalls, no subscriptions, no "upgrade to pro"
• 🎯 Universal compatibility - Works with native macOS apps, Electron apps, and all browsers
• ⚡ Lightning fast - Native performance with instant response
• 🛠️ Power-user friendly - Text-based config for version control and dotfile management
• 🤝 Community-owned - Your contributions shape the project
• 🔧 Scriptable - CLI commands enable automation and integration

Free Alternative To

Neru is a capable replacement for:

• Homerow - Modern keyboard navigation (paid)
• Shortcat - Keyboard productivity tool (discontinued? not sure...)
• Vimac - Vim-style navigation (unmaintained)
• Mouseless - Grid based keyboard navigation (paid)

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Features

• 🎯 Hint labels - Click any visible element using keyboard labels (grid or vimium hints)
• 🎬 Action mode - Choose click type: left, right, double, triple middle, drag and drop, and more
• 📜 Vim-style scrolling - Scroll anywhere with j/k, gg/G, Ctrl+D/U - works standalone or within hints/grid modes
• 🌐 Universal support - Native apps, Electron, Chrome, Firefox, menubar, Dock, Mission Control
• ⚡ Native performance - Built with Objective-C and Go for instant response
• 🛠️ Highly customizable - Configure everything via TOML
• 🚫 App exclusion - Disable Neru in specific applications
• 💬 IPC control - Control via CLI for scripting and automation
• 📦 No GUI bloat - Configuration over UI for maintainability

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Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

brew tap y3owk1n/tap
brew install --cask y3owk1n/tap/neru

Nix

See docs/INSTALLATION.md for Nix configuration details.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/y3owk1n/neru.git
cd neru
just release # CLI only
just bundle  # App bundle

See docs/INSTALLATION.md for detailed installation instructions and troubleshooting.

Grant Permissions

After installation, grant Accessibility permissions:

1. Open System Settings
2. Navigate to Privacy & Security → Accessibility
3. Enable Neru

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Quick Start

# Start Neru
open -a Neru  # App bundle
# or
neru launch   # CLI

# Try the default hotkeys:
# Cmd+Shift+Space - Hint mode
# Cmd+Shift+G     - Grid mode
# Cmd+Shift+S     - Scroll

Basic workflow:

For hints:

1. Press hotkey to activate hints
2. Type the label characters (e.g., "aa", "ab") - use delete to fix typos
3. Element is clicked, cursor optionally restores to original position
4. Press Esc anytime to cancel
5. Press <Tab> to switch to between action and overlay modes

For grid:

1. Press hotkey to activate grid mode
2. Click the cell you want to click
3. Refine the final selection within the selected cell
4. Element is clicked, cursor optionally restores to original position
5. Press Esc anytime to cancel
6. Press <Tab> to switch to between action and overlay modes

Action mode is a special mode that allows you to perform actions on the current cursor position.

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Documentation

• Installation Guide - Detailed installation for Homebrew, Nix, and source builds
• Configuration - Complete configuration reference with examples
• CLI Usage - Command-line interface and IPC control
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• Development - Building, testing, and contributing

Configuration Files

Neru uses TOML for configuration. Default locations (in order of preference):

1. ~/.config/neru/config.toml (XDG standard - recommended for dotfiles)
2. ~/Library/Application Support/neru/config.toml (macOS convention)
3. Custom path: neru launch --config /path/to/config.toml

No config file? Neru uses sensible defaults.

See configs/default-config.toml for all options, or check docs/CONFIGURATION.md for examples. To apply changes, run neru config reload. To inspect what the daemon is actually using, run neru config.

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Design Philosophy

Why No GUI?

Neru intentionally avoids a GUI settings panel because:

✅ Config files are superior for power users

• Faster to edit than clicking through settings
• Version control friendly (git, dotfiles)
• Easily shared and documented
• More powerful than UI constraints allow

✅ Reduces maintenance burden

• No UI code to maintain
• Focus on core functionality
• Smaller, simpler codebase

✅ Menubar provides essentials

• Quick access to common actions
• Status information
• Enable/disable toggle

This is an intentional choice to keep Neru lean, maintainable, and focused on what matters: keyboard-driven productivity.

Grid-Based > Hint-Based

Neru uses a grid-based approach for hint placement, not accessibility tree traversal:

Grid-Based (Neru)	Hint-Based (Traditional)
✅ Works everywhere	❌ Breaks in Electron
✅ Works in menubar	❌ No menubar support
✅ Works in Mission Control	❌ No Mission Control
✅ Fast (instant)	❌ Slower (tree walk)
✅ Simple maintenance	❌ Complex app-specific fixes
✅ Always accurate	❌ Misaligned hints
✅ No side effects	❌ Can break tiling WMs

Grid-based navigation means Neru doesn't depend on apps exposing proper accessibility information. It works by overlaying a visual grid and clicking at exact screen coordinates - simple, reliable, universal.

Important: Neru includes optional accessibility support for Chromium and Firefox (disabled by default) that can help with hint detection. However, enabling this may cause side effects with tiling window managers (yabai, Amethyst, etc.). If you use a tiling WM, keep additional_ax_support.enable = false unless absolutely necessary.

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Project Status

[!NOTE] Neru is a personal project maintained on a best-effort basis. Pull requests are more likely to be reviewed than feature requests or issues, unless I'm experiencing the same problem.

This project thrives on community contributions. I'm happy to merge PRs that align with the project's goals. Neru stays current through collective effort rather than solo maintenance.

Roadmap / Future Ideas

• Test suites (contributions welcome!)
• Launch agent with start-service/stop-service commands
• Better app icon and menubar icon

Known Issues:

• Hold/unhold actions don't work in Finder.app (help is appreciated!)

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Make your changes
4. Test thoroughly (just test && just lint)
5. Commit with clear messages
6. Push and open a Pull Request

Guidelines:

• Keep PRs focused on a single change
• Add tests for new features
• Update documentation
• Follow existing code style

See docs/DEVELOPMENT.md for build instructions and architecture details.

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Compatibility

Neru works with:

• ✅ All native macOS apps (Finder, Safari, System Settings, etc.)
• ✅ Electron apps (VS Code, Windsurf, Cursor, Slack, Spotify, Obsidian)
• ✅ Chromium browsers (Chrome, Brave, Arc)
• ✅ Firefox browsers (Firefox, Zen)
• ✅ Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop)
• ✅ Menubar applications
• ✅ Dock and Mission Control

See docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md if you encounter issues with specific apps.

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License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

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Acknowledgments

Neru is inspired by these excellent projects:

• Homerow - Modern keyboard navigation for macOS
• Vimac - Vim-style keyboard navigation
• Shortcat - Keyboard productivity tool
• Vimium - Vim bindings for browsers
• Vifari - Vimium/Vimari for Safari
• Mouseless - Grid based keyboard navigation

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Support

• 📖 Check docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md for common issues
• 🐛 Open an issue for bugs (but PRs are preferred!)
• ⭐ Star the repo if you find Neru useful!

Made with ❤️ by y3owk1n