kglobalacceld

kglobalacceld is the daemon component responsible for global shortcut registration and activation in KDE software.

Shortcut allowlist

In some scenarios (for example lock screen, login screen, or kiosk-like setups) you may want to allow only a specific set of global shortcuts to be activated, while preventing all other global shortcuts from triggering.

kglobalacceld supports an allowlist mode for this.

How it works

• When allowlist mode is disabled, all registered global shortcuts behave normally.
• When allowlist mode is enabled, only shortcuts explicitly listed in the allowlist are permitted to trigger.

The check is done using the pair:

• the shortcut’s component name (the component owning the shortcut; for example kwin, kaccess, etc.)
• the shortcut’s shortcut name (the action/shortcut identifier within that component)

If a shortcut is not present in the allowlist, it will be ignored and will not emit/trigger its action.

Configuration file and keys

The allowlist is configured in ~/.config/kglobalaccelrc.

• Group [General]

  • useAllowList=true|false

• Group [AllowedShortcuts]

  • Keys are component names.
  • Values are a comma-separated list of shortcut names for that component.

Example

Allow only two shortcuts owned by the kwin component, and the default shortcut that launches System Settings:

[General]
useAllowList=true

[AllowedShortcuts]
kwin=ShowDesktop,Walk Through Windows
systemsettings.desktop=_launch

Disable allowlist mode entirely:

[General]
useAllowList=false

It may be helpful to reference the component and shortcut names from existing shortcuts you have configured in your system by examining ~/.config/kglobalshortcutsrc.

Development

TODO: document logging, debugging, code layout, and contribution notes.

Testing

TODO: document how to run tests.

License

See the files in LICENSES/ for details.