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tactile

Collision detection

Two rules competing for the same keystroke is a collision. Most libraries leave you to discover these at runtime. Tactile makes them first-class.

Detection

Section titled “Detection”

At registration, the engine analyzes overlaps. Query them any time:

kb.add({ id: 'a', keys: 'mod+k', handler: openPalette });
kb.add({ id: 'b', keys: 'mod+k', handler: openLink });


kb.getCollisions();
// [{ keys: 'mod+k', rules: [{ id: 'a', ... }, { id: 'b', ... }] }]

The check is deliberately low-noise: rules only collide when at least one has no when, or their when expressions are identical. Two rules with different whens are assumed to be intentionally scoped and aren’t reported.

Resolution

Section titled “Resolution”

When multiple rules match a live keystroke and their contexts are all satisfied, the engine picks a winner by:

  1. priority — higher wins (default 0).
  2. Registration order — most recently added wins the tie (last-write-wins).

This mirrors VS Code’s precedence model.

kb.add({ id: 'default', keys: 'mod+k', handler: a });
kb.add({ id: 'override', keys: 'mod+k', handler: b, priority: 10 }); // b wins

Enable debug: true on the engine to log registrations and collisions to the console.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”