Window management (prowl)

prowl is the tiling room. It wraps AeroSpace — a tiling window manager for macOS — and adds a Caps-Lock leader so you can launch, focus, move, and resize windows without ever reaching for the mouse or a far-flung modifier.

Windows arrange themselves into a tree; the keyboard moves them around it. It feels like a tiling Linux rig, but it’s native macOS windows underneath.

The leader key: Caps-Lock

prowl remaps Caps-Lock to F18 and uses it as a leader. There are two ways to use it:

Tap ⇪ (press and release) → enter launch mode: the bar morphs into letter-hint bubbles, and pressing an app’s letter launches or focuses it.
Launch mode is also the gateway to navigate mode (arrow keys move focus), resize mode, workspace jumps, and quick palette actions.

Meanwhile, ⌥ (Option/Alt) is the everyday modifier for layouts and workspace-moves.

Focus with arrows deliberately isn’t a bare ⌥ chord: ⌥, ⌘, and ⌃ with the arrow keys are all macOS text-navigation, so arrow-focus lives behind the Caps-Lock leader (tap ⇪, then arrow) where nothing collides. No Vim keys required — but ⌥H/J/K/L is there for the hands that want it.

Not fond of these keys?

Both halves of that vocabulary are options, so none of the above is baked in:

nebelhaus.keys.leader    = "caps";       # caps | alt-space | none
nebelhaus.keys.windowNav = "alt";        # alt | ctrl-alt | cmd-alt | none
nebelhaus.keys.palette   = "cmd-space";  # cmd-space | alt-space | ctrl-space | none

Three reasons people change them, in rough order of how often:

Keep Caps-Lock. leader = "alt-space" gives you the launcher without remapping anything. (The remap is re-applied at each rebuild and doesn’t survive a reboot, so moving off "caps" ends it — at the latest, at next boot.)
A non-US keyboard layout. On many layouts ⌥+letter is how you type accented characters, so a window manager owning ⌥ makes the keyboard unusable. windowNav = "ctrl-alt" moves every chord in one go — and the cheatsheet’s captions move with them, because both come from the same table.
Mouse-first. leader = "none" with windowNav = "none" leaves the keyboard entirely alone: prowl still tiles, but claims no chords. Reach apps through Pounce instead.

palette = "none" hands ⌘Space back to Spotlight — and only that value takes Spotlight’s shortcut away in the first place.

Whatever you pick, the in-system cheatsheet (tap the leader, then /) and the first-run tour describe the keys you actually have, not these defaults.

Everyday tiling — main mode

Keys	Action
`⌥/`	Tiles layout (toggles horizontal ↔ vertical split)
`⌥,`	Accordion layout (toggles horizontal ↔ vertical)
`⌥F`	Toggle fullscreen
`⌥Tab`	Jump to the previous workspace (back-and-forth)
`⌥⇧Tab`	Move the workspace to the next monitor
`⌥⇧;`	Enter service mode
`⌘Space`	Open Pounce

Nothing here names a workspace — those are all leader actions. Tap ⇪, then a digit (1–4) or an app’s letter to go there, or ⇧+that same key to throw the focused window there and go with it. Same motion whether you’re heading to a scratch space or to an app, and the two halves of the thought are one ⇧ apart — either way you end up on the workspace you named. To send a window somewhere and stay put, throw it and then ⌥Tab straight back.

Launch mode — tap ⇪

Tap Caps-Lock, then:

Key	Action
`<app-key>`	Launch or focus that app (e.g. `T` = Ghostty, `B` = Zen)
`1`–`4`	Focus workspace 1–4
`⇧1`–`⇧4`	Throw the focused window to workspace 1–4 and follow it there
`⇧<app-key>`	Throw the focused window to that app’s home workspace and follow it there
`←↓↑→`	Move focus; enters navigate mode (see below)
`-` / `=`	Enter resize mode (shrink / grow)
`V`	Clipboard history (via Pounce)
`E`	Emoji picker (via Pounce)
`Z`	Reopen the last closed app (the ⌘⇧T analog)
`,`	Open macOS System Settings (mirrors the ⌘, convention)
`Backtick`	Re-sort every window to its workspace
`/`	Show the cheatsheet
`Esc`	Exit launch mode

Navigate mode is how you move focus without Vim keys or a text-nav-clobbering chord: tap ⇪, then an arrow moves focus and sticks, so further arrows keep moving. Hold ⇧ with an arrow to move the focused window instead. Esc or Enter returns to the desktop.

Resize mode is a small delight: once you’re in it, you can press - or = repeatedly without re-tapping the leader. Esc or Enter exits.

Service mode — ⌥⇧;

For the less-frequent structural operations:

Key	Action
`R`	Flatten the workspace tree
`F`	Toggle floating ↔ tiling for the window
`Backspace`	Close all windows except the current one
`⌥⇧H/J/K/L`	Join with the neighbour in that direction
`↑` / `↓`	Volume up / down
`⇧↓`	Mute
`Esc`	Reload config and exit

Your app roster

The launcher letters, workspace assignments, and the bar’s workspace pills all come from one keyed app map: nebelhaus.apps. Out of the box it’s just a terminal (T) and a browser (B). Entries compose across modules, so add only your own:

nebelhaus.apps.slack = {
  key = "s"; name = "Slack"; workspace = "S";
  appId = "com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap"; barIcon = ":slack:";
  label = "Slack"; cask = "slack";
};
nebelhaus.apps.discord = {
  key = "d"; name = "Discord"; workspace = "D";
  appId = "com.hnc.Discord"; barIcon = ":discord:"; cask = "discord";
};

Each field:

key — the launcher letter (unique across the roster).
name — the macOS app name (open -a uses it).
workspace — the AeroSpace workspace letter; null means launcher-only, no dedicated workspace.
appId — the bundle id, used to auto-assign the app’s windows to its workspace. Find it with osascript -e 'id of app "Slack"'. null skips auto-assign.
barIcon — the SketchyBar app-font ligature (e.g. :slack:) shown in the bar; null falls back to the workspace letter.
label — the cheatsheet caption; null uses name.
cask — a Homebrew cask to install it; null if it’s already installed.
enable — set false to disable a default or imported app by id.
order — lower numbers appear earlier in the roster.

Rebuild with haus rebuild and your new letters, workspaces, and bar pills all appear together.

Turning it off

Don’t want tiling? Set nebelhaus.prowl.enable = false; and the Caps-Lock remap, launcher, and AeroSpace all stay out of your way. The rest of the rice still works.

The complete, always-current binding list — including the terminal and Pounce — is on the Keybindings cheatsheet.