Global shortcuts and the background service

By Alexis Rios-Negron · Voltkit 0.13.1

Keyboard shortcuts that work from any app, Keep Awake that survives closing the window, and typed triggers all need Voltkit's background service (the daemon). It starts by itself the first time you open the app and at every login after that.

What the service does#

Listens for the global keyboard shortcuts and runs the action.
Holds Keep Awake so it lasts after the window closes.
Runs typed triggers when they are on.
Keeps a hardware snapshot for System Report's What Changed.

It owns the name io.github.arios4k.Voltkit.Daemon on the session bus, so only one runs at a time.

Control it#

voltkit daemon                    # run in the foreground
voltkit daemon status             # running? which shortcut backend?
voltkit daemon stop
voltkit daemon reload             # re-read snippets after editing the config file
voltkit daemon enable-autostart   # start at every login
voltkit daemon disable-autostart

voltkit daemon status prints something like running (v0.10.4), shortcuts: gnome-keybindings, typed triggers: on. In the app, the Start banner appears whenever the service is off.

How the shortcuts are bound#

Desktop	How
GNOME 48+, KDE Plasma 5.27+, Hyprland (xdg-desktop-portal 1.19 or newer)	The GlobalShortcuts portal: the desktop asks you to approve them once
Older GNOME (for example 46) and GNOME-based distributions	Custom shortcuts in Settings → Keyboard → Custom Shortcuts, added automatically (or with `voltkit shortcuts install`)
Sway, river and others	Bind `voltkit trigger ocr`, `trigger color` and the others in your compositor config

voltkit shortcuts install --dry-run   # preview what would be added
voltkit shortcuts install             # add them to GNOME Settings
voltkit shortcuts remove              # remove only the ones Voltkit added

Other custom shortcuts are left untouched.

The default keys#

Action	Default	Config key
Text Extractor	`Super`+`Shift`+`T`	`ocr`
Color Picker	`Super`+`Shift`+`C`	`color_picker`
Snippet picker	`Super`+`Shift`+`E`	`snippets`
QR scan	`Super`+`Shift`+`Q`	`qr`
Screen Ruler	`Super`+`Shift`+`R`	`ruler`
Smart Paste	`Super`+`Shift`+`V`	`smart_paste`
Zoom & Annotate	`Super`+`Shift`+`Z`	`zoom`
Shortcut cheat sheet	`Super`+`Shift`+`/`	`shortcut_guide`

Change them in ~/.config/voltkit/config.toml (see Configuration file) and run voltkit shortcuts install again, or use Shortcut Detective to find a free combination and change it.

Troubleshooting#

A shortcut does nothing. Run voltkit daemon status. If it is not running, voltkit daemon or the Start banner starts it. Then check the shortcut is not taken by something else with Shortcut Detective.
The desktop asked about a shortcut and I said no. Remove and re-add it in your desktop's keyboard settings, or run voltkit shortcuts install.
I do not want a background service. Run voltkit daemon disable-autostart and voltkit daemon stop. The app still works, but shortcuts, Keep Awake after closing and typed triggers will not.