shortcut

A named alias that expands to a location URI at parse time. Simple name -> target mappings. No patterns, no regex. Built-in shortcuts (limbo, search, help, web, files) are seeded at boot. Skills can register shortcuts (reddit, youtube, etc). Users can create, modify, or delete any shortcut.

Structural input (URLs, domains, absolute paths) is handled by the normalizer before shortcut lookup — shortcuts don’t need pattern matching.

Metadata	Value
Plural	shortcuts
Subtitle field	target
Identity	name

Fields

Field	Type
name	string
target	string
filter	string
builtin	boolean

Relations

Relation	Target
skill	skill

Prior art

External standards this shape draws from or aligns with. See Shape design principles for how prior art informs shape design.

• Unix shell aliases (bash/zsh) — Our name→target expansion follows the alias pattern. builtin vs user-created parallels shell builtins vs. rc-file aliases.
• Vannevar Bush — “As We May Think” (1945, associative trails) — Named trails through the memex. Our named shortcut-to-URI mapping is a mechanized version of Bush’s trail idea.
• RFC 3986 URI Generic Syntax — Our target is a URI (location URI). Shortcut names resolve to RFC 3986-compliant references.