Kanata is a cross-platform keymap engine and keyboard firmware emulator that intercepts physical keystrokes to output modified signals on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It serves as a keyboard remapper and layer manager, allowing users to define custom key-map sequences and modal editing behaviors through a declarative configuration file.
The system implements keyboard firmware features in software, enabling advanced behaviors such as tap-hold logic, unicode output, and dynamic macros. It utilizes a state-based layer stack to manage multiple sets of key assignments that toggle dynamically and supports leader sequences to enable modal keyboard workflows.
The tool includes a mechanism for live configuration reloading to apply keymap changes without restarting the service. It also provides a network interface via a TCP server for remotely monitoring or triggering layer changes and a utility for recording key sequences to facilitate automated testing.
