Keyboard shortcuts and command palette
Aseptic works fine with nothing but a mouse. But the things you do twenty times a day —switch section, jump to a scenario, start it, open the logs— are faster with a key. This is the full list.
The command palette
Ctrl + K opens the palette: a text field and a list that filters as you type. The arrows move the selection, Enter runs and Esc closes. There are three kinds of things inside, grouped:
- Sections and panels. The left rail's sections —Scenarios, Services, Libraries and Mocks—, the support panels on the right —Notifications, Docker, Databases, Readiness and the copilot— and Settings.
- Scenarios. Every scenario in the project by name. Picking one selects it and opens its section.
- Actions. The ones that make sense right now: start shows up with a stopped scenario selected, stop only while one is running, clean up only while none is. Alongside them, the ones that always apply: toggle the bottom panel, open the logs full screen, or bring up this very list.
That last part is what sets it apart from a menu. A menu shows everything the app can do and greys out what doesn't apply; the palette lists what can be run in the state the window is actually in. Which is why it works by typing what you want —"start", "logs", the scenario's name— instead of remembering where it lived.
The shortcuts
There are 12 of them, in 4 groups. Ctrl is ⌘ on macOS, and the app works that out on its own: the cheatsheet shows the key for the platform it is running on. Ctrl + 1 through 4 go, in that order, to Scenarios, Services, Mocks and the Docker panel.
Navigation
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/⌘ K | Open the command palette |
| Ctrl/⌘ F | Search the active section's sidebar |
| Ctrl/⌘ 1–4 | Switch section |
| Ctrl/⌘ J | Show or hide the bottom panel |
| ↑↓ | Move the selection in the sidebar list |
| Enter | Open or edit the selected item |
Actions
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/⌘ N | Create the item for the active section (scenario · service · stub) |
| Ctrl/⌘ Enter | Start or stop the selected scenario |
| Ctrl/⌘ E | Export the selected scenario |
| Esc | Close the open editor or dialog |
View
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/⌘ +−0 | Zoom in · out · reset |
Help
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ? | Show this shortcut reference |
Why there are so few
12 combinations fit in your head; forty get looked up, and looking up a list of shortcuts is precisely what a shortcut was there to avoid. The list is kept short on purpose: a key is earned when the action repeats many times a day. Everything else lives in the palette, which needs no memorising because you search it by typing.
Keys without a modifier —Enter, Esc, the arrows, ?— don't steal your typing: inside a text field they behave like they do in any text field. The one exception is Enter from the sidebar's search box, which opens the item selected in the list next to it.
And whatever floats in front wins over what's behind it: with the palette, a dialog or the cheatsheet itself open, Esc closes that surface and the remaining shortcuts never reach the window. Without that rule, closing a dropdown also closed the editor underneath.
The same list, inside the app
The reference opens with ? at any time, and also lives under Settings → Keyboard shortcuts. The guide documents it in Keyboard shortcuts.
If this page and the app ever disagree, this page is the one that's wrong: the table above isn't written, it's generated when the site is published from the same shortcut registry that dispatches the keystrokes in the application. A shortcut that changes in the app changes here, in all six languages, with nobody having to remember.
Frequently asked questions
Can the shortcuts be remapped?
Not today: there is no key-binding editor. While there are 12 of them and none collide, remapping solves a problem that doesn't exist yet.
Do they work the same on macOS?
Yes. The modifier is ⌘ rather than Ctrl and the app detects that on its own, so the cheatsheet and the menus show the key for the platform you're on.
What happens if I press Ctrl+Enter with no scenario selected?
Nothing. A shortcut always resolves to the same action, but the action checks its state before running: starting needs a scenario selected and the editor closed, exactly like the topbar button. The keystroke doesn't queue a half-done start.
Are there shortcuts for the CLI?
The aseptic CLI doesn't have shortcuts: it has commands. What
the app does and what the CLI does come out of the same operations registry, so
nearly everything a key triggers here has its command there.