Colemak Pair Programming

Colemak pair-programming

I type Colemak. Every navigation tool on my machine is remapped: h left, n down, e up, i right. If you suggest hjkl mappings, paste vim docs that assume QWERTY, or recommend a tmux pane-switch chord using C-h C-j C-k C-l, the suggestion is wrong on my keyboard.

This skill is a heads-up, not a tutorial. References hold the full mapping if you need them.

When this skill is active

You are about to:

• Suggest a vim/Neovim keymap
• Suggest a tmux pane or window chord
• Recommend a fzf, telescope, or LSP keybinding
• Paste documentation that assumes QWERTY home row

The substitutions

QWERTY → Colemak
  h → h    (same)
  j → n    (down)
  k → e    (up)
  l → i    (right)

So j (move to window below) is n on my machine. k is e.

Anti-patterns

• Telling me to "press j to scroll down" in Neovim — I press n.
• Generating a vim cheatsheet from public docs without translating.
• Recommending a plugin that hardcodes hjkl and isn't configurable.
• Suggesting C-h/C-j/C-k/C-l for tmux pane navigation — my prefix is C-a and the keys are h/n/e/i.

What's safe

Letters that aren't navigation (e.g. ff for telescope find-files) are layout-independent — Colemak only differs from QWERTY on letter positions, not on chord composition. Safe to suggest as-is.

References

• [core-colemak](references/core-colemak.md) — complete remapping table across tools
• [features-neovim](references/features-neovim.md) — NvChad + Lazy.nvim setup
• [features-tmux](references/features-tmux.md) — TPM, prefix, pane chords
• [features-zsh](references/features-zsh.md) — oh-my-zsh, aliases, p10k

If you're not sure whether a chord is layout-sensitive, ask — don't guess.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: mateonunez
• Source: mateonunez/skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.