練る · Neru

Navigate your entire screen without touching the mouse.

Neru (練る — "to refine through practice") puts your cursor anywhere on screen using only your keyboard. Click, scroll, drag — all without leaving the home row.

It's a free, open-source alternative to Homerow, Mouseless, and Wooshy. No paywalls, no subscriptions, fully configurable.

See how the author uses Neru day-to-day → HOW-I-USE-NERU.md and a quick demo with recursive_grid with my own config:

Recursive Grid · recommended

Grid

Hints

Recursive Grid is the recommended daily driver. It's precise, predictable, and requires no per-app setup — it just works everywhere.

• All mouse actions — left, right, and middle click; drag & drop; all key-bound
• Sticky modifiers — tap Shift or Cmd once to apply to your next click, no holding
• Per-app exclusions — opt specific apps out by bundle ID
• CLI & scripting — full IPC-based CLI for shell scripts and hotkey managers
• TOML config — every keybinding, color, and behavior in one file you can version-control

Works in native macOS apps, Electron apps (VS Code, Slack, Obsidian), all major browsers, creative tools (Figma, Illustrator), and system UI (Dock, Menubar, Mission Control). Grid and Recursive Grid need no accessibility support — they work universally.

# Homebrew (recommended — gets you auto-updates)
brew tap y3owk1n/tap
brew install --cask y3owk1n/tap/neru

# Nix Flake
# inputs.neru.url = "github:y3owk1n/neru";
# See docs/INSTALLATION.md for nix-darwin / home-manager setup

# Build from source
git clone https://github.com/y3owk1n/neru.git
cd neru && just release

Then grant accessibility access: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable Neru.

open -a Neru              # launch
neru services install     # auto-start on login

Full walkthrough: Installation Guide →

All hotkeys are remappable. See Configuration Reference →

Note: Adding any custom hotkey replaces all defaults. Re-declare every hotkey you want to keep.

Everything lives in ~/.config/neru/config.toml — one file, plain text, dotfile-friendly.

neru config init      # generate a commented starter config
neru config validate  # check for errors
neru config reload    # hot-reload into a running daemon

Version-control it, share it, script against it. No settings GUI, no hidden state.

Full reference: Configuration Docs → · Community configs: Config Showcases →

macOS is fully supported. Linux and Windows currently expose the shared architecture, ports, and stubs, but still need native implementations for core functionality. neru doctor now reports these runtime capability gaps explicitly.

Shared code should prefer platform roles over macOS-specific assumptions:

• Use Primary in new cross-platform hotkeys when you mean "Cmd on macOS, Ctrl elsewhere".
• Treat Linux as a backend family, not one target: X11 and Wayland may need separate adapters behind the same port.
• Keep backend selection in platform/infra code so contributors can extend Linux without editing shared mode logic.
• Treat CGO as backend-dependent, not automatically OS-dependent: macOS needs it today, Linux may or may not depending on backend, and Windows should prefer pure-Go Win32 bindings where practical.

Interested in porting? Check cross-platform issues or join the Linux discussion.

Contributor quick start for platform work:

just build
just test-foundation
just build-linux      # or: just build-windows

The project is small and the codebase is approachable. PRs welcome.

git checkout -b feature/your-idea
just test && just lint
# open a PR

Keep PRs focused on a single change. See Coding Standards and Development Guide.

Neru is free and built entirely in my spare time. If it's replaced a paid tool in your workflow, consider sponsoring — it helps justify the hours.

GitHub Sponsors →

Built on the shoulders of Homerow, Vimac, Vimium, Mouseless, and Shortcat.

MIT — see LICENSE.