Purpose

The base layer carries the Colemak-DH alpha grid plus the eight Tap Dance Home Row Mods, the four thumb triggers, and the eight letter-position layer-trigger Tap Dances. Every other layer is reached from here.

Design rationale

Colemak-DH alphas. Inherited from Cadenza, ultimately from the Colemak-DH community. Maximises home-row use for English; works acceptably for German.

HRM via Tap Dance, not MT(). Tap Dance permits per-key tipping terms — 250 ms on A and O (pinky/ring, slower fingers), 200 ms on R, S, T, N, E, I (index/middle, faster). One global term cannot serve both finger groups well.

Bilateral letter-pair triggers. F+U (middle top), W+Y (ring top), Z+/ (pinky bottom), X+. (ring bottom). Whichever hand is freer activates; the other types. Letters chosen for low DE+EN frequency to avoid hold-trigger interference.

Triple-action Spc-thumb. Tap = Space. Hold = Navigation (L4). Tap + hold = Mouse (L5). The third action is reached by tapping Spc once, then immediately pressing it again and holding — a distinct gesture from a normal tap or a normal hold.

Two-action Tab-thumb. Tap = Tab. Hold = International (L1). Tab remains a normal character available on the strongest thumb position.

Pinky-top long-holds (500 ms) for firmware control. Q and ' both trigger L11 only on a deliberately uncomfortable long-hold. The ergonomic cost is the safety gate.

Tap Dances on this layer

Layer-tap on thumbs (not Tap Dance)

• Ent-thumb — LT3(KC_ENTER): tap = Enter, hold = L3 Numbers.
• Bsp-thumb — LT2(KC_BSPACE): tap = Backspace, hold = L2 Symbols.

Known limitations & open questions

• Spc tap+hold ambiguity. The three-way TD requires distinguishing a normal Spc tap from a Spc tap-then-press-and-hold. Real-world false-trigger rate is on the v1.11.x stabilisation ROADMAP.
• Tab-hold during German prose. Tab tap (real Tab character) is uncommon during German prose, but Tab tap during indented Markdown lists could conflict with intended L1 hold. Watch for unintended Tab insertions.

Purpose

L1 is the central layer for everything the US base layout does not cover natively. All five US-International dead keys are reachable here in one mental model. Direct German umlaut Tap Dances bypass the dead-key workflow for the three high-frequency cases (ä, ö, ü). ß, €, and an extra Esc round out the layer. Q and X reappear in the centre of the right hand for muscle-memory continuity with Sonata, the 28-key sister project that lacks an inner column.

Design rationale

One layer, all dead keys. US-International has five dead keys: `, ', ", ^, ~. Before v1.12.0 they were scattered across multiple layers. v1.12.0 made L1 the canonical home: ` on P and L (bilateral, both mid-positions), " on T and N (the strongest mirror pair, where dead-quote use is highest in prose), ' on D and H (one row down), ^ on the dot position, ~ on the comma position. The mental model is "all dead keys live on Tab-hold."

Direct umlauts on mnemonic positions. ä on A (mnemonic: A → ä), ü on U (U → ü), ö on O (O → ö). Tap = lowercase via AltGr+letter; hold = capital via a Shift+AltGr macro. Direct access is faster than the dead-key workflow (" + a → ä) for the most-frequent German letters.

ß and € on the left home. ß on S (RAlt+S, the US-International standard). € on R (RAlt+5, also US-International standard). Both on the left home where the umlaut TDs already cluster — German typing happens in a tight area.

Esc on Bsp-thumb. When L1 is active, the right thumb's Bsp position becomes Esc. The Sweep lost the dedicated Esc thumb key from Cadenza; placing Esc on the held-into layers (L1 here, L7 too) preserves access via thumb position.

Q and X overflow on E and I. Sonata, the 28-key sister project, has no inner-column or pinky-top positions for Q and X. To preserve cross-layout muscle memory, Cadence places Q and X also on L1 R-home positions E and I, where Sonata reaches them. A Cadence user transitioning to Sonata will find Q and X exactly where the muscle memory expects.

Tap Dances on this layer

Direct keycodes on this layer

• R — RAlt+5 → € (US-Intl Euro)
• S — RAlt+S → ß (US-Intl sharp-s)
• P, L — ` (grave dead key, bilateral)
• , — ~ (Shift+grave, tilde dead key)
• . — ^ (Shift+6, circumflex dead key)
• E — Q (Sonata-mirror overflow)
• I — X (Sonata-mirror overflow)
• Bsp-thumb — Esc

Macros on this layer

Capital umlaut macros M16 (Ä), M17 (Ü), M18 (Ö) are invoked from the umlaut Tap Dance hold actions. Each macro holds Shift + AltGr, taps the corresponding base letter (Q, Y, P), then releases the modifiers. Macros are used because Vial Tap Dance hold-slots cannot encode two simultaneous modifiers + a letter as a single keycode.

Macros M2 (apostrophe + space) and M4 (double-quote + space) provide explicit dead-key commit when the hold-variant is invoked.

Known limitations & open questions

• OS layout dependency. Cadence's L1 assumes the OS keyboard layout is set to US International (with dead keys). On a US-no-deadkeys layout, the dead-key positions emit literal characters and accent composition fails.
• Sonata-mirror Q/X on E/I. Useful for cross-layout consistency, but consumes two L1 positions that could otherwise be free. Acceptable cost given the muscle-memory benefit.

Purpose

L2 is the symbol layer for prose, code, and Markdown. Every ASCII symbol that does not require AltGr is reachable here. The layer is also shared as a specification with Sonata v3.x — the position assignments and Tap Dance encodings are identical, so muscle memory transfers between the two layouts.

Design rationale

Frequency × ergonomic strength = position. The most-typed operators land on the strongest fingers. = on Tab-thumb (the strongest left position), - on Spc-thumb. % on A, + on R, !/& Tap Dance on S, */@ Tap Dance on T (the strongest left finger gets the operator-pair with the highest combined frequency). The ranking is informed by code-corpus statistics, not aesthetic preference.

Right-thumb access asymmetry. Bsp (right thumb) triggers L2; the right thumb is therefore anchored. Symbol content is loaded onto the freer left hand and the upper rows of the right hand. The right bottom row is intentionally transparent — it would conflict with right-thumb anchoring during Bsp-hold.

Bracket pairs as Tap Dance on right top. (/) on L, [/] on U, </> on Y, {/} on '. Tap = open, Hold = close. The right-top row is reachable while the right thumb anchors at Bsp. This duplicates the L9 Brackets layer's content — the duplication is deliberate, because brackets appear during symbol-typing flows (e.g. after a math operator) and the layer-switch cost would interrupt the flow.

Right-home prose punctuation, with paren pair as a bonus. ,/( on N, ./) on E, '/^ on I, ; on O. Tap actions are punctuation marks for prose; hold actions on N and E together produce the (/) pair on right home, so parentheses can be typed without bridging through L9 Brackets. Useful for prose-context parens (smileys like :-), footnotes, inline asides) where layer-switching would interrupt the writing flow. Hold on I (^) and O (no hold) preserve apostrophe-caret and semicolon for code annotation.

Tap Dance pairs by semantic kinship. !/& together because both are common shell/code single-char operators. */@ together because both serve as "annotation" symbols (multiplication, decoration). //\ together because both are filesystem-path separators. The pairings are mnemonic: tap and hold of the same key are conceptually related.

Symbol-layer specification shared with Sonata. Sonata is a 28-key sister layout without an inner column and with different access keys, but its symbol layer uses the identical position-to-symbol mapping (TD(52)–TD(57) included). A user fluent in Cadence's L2 carries muscle memory into Sonata's symbol layer.

Tap Dances on this layer

Direct keycodes on this layer

• Top left — ~ (Q), ? (W), # (F), $ (P)
• Home left — % (A), + (R) — the rest are TDs
• Bottom left — : (X), _ (C); D is the slash/backslash TD
• Thumbs left — - (Spc-thumb), = (Tab-thumb) — the most-frequent operators on the strongest positions
• Right home — ; (O); the rest are TDs

Known limitations & open questions

• Right bottom row transparent. During L2 the right bottom row passes through to the base-layer (K, H, comma-as-comma, period-as-period, slash-as-slash). Intentional reserve from the right-thumb-anchoring rationale; could be filled if a future need emerges.
• Bracket duplication with L9. The same TDs (TD(25)–TD(28)) appear on L2 right-top and L9 home rows. Cost: muscle memory for two locations of the same function. Benefit: brackets are reachable from whichever layer the user is already in, no layer-switch needed mid-flow.

Purpose

L3 is the calculator layer. Numpad on the left, ASCII operators on the right, brackets on the pinky verticals, Tab on the right thumb for spreadsheet cell navigation. (2 + 3) * 4 can be typed without leaving L3 — every character of a typical arithmetic or spreadsheet-formula expression is reachable.

Design rationale

Numpad-spatial digit layout. 7-8-9 on top, 4-5-6 on home, 1-2-3 on bottom (W-F-P / R-S-T / X-C-D positions). The visual layout matches a standard numeric keypad, exploiting whatever numpad muscle memory the user already has. 0 on Spc-thumb (the largest physical key, mirrors the bottom-row 0 on a numpad).

Brackets on Q and Z (pinky-top and pinky-bottom). Q = (, Z = ). Vertical pinky pair lets the same finger type both halves of a parenthesised expression without re-anchoring. Mnemonic: "pinky open, pinky close."

ASCII operators (not Numpad keycodes) on the right. +, -, *, =, ,, ., / emit the regular ASCII characters, not KC_KP_PLUS etc. v1.12.2 made this change explicit because Numpad keycodes interact poorly with locale settings (the German Numpad emits , instead of . as decimal separator) and require Num-Lock to be on. ASCII keycodes are universal.

Modifier mirror on right home. RShift, RCtrl, RAlt, RGui on N, E, I, O. While L3 is held with the right thumb (Ent), the right hand is normally typing digits or operators. The right-home modifier mirror exists for the rarer case of digit-with-modifier (e.g. Ctrl+1 to switch tabs in a browser while typing numerically). The L3 trigger is a hold, so left HRMs on A/R/S/T are not available; the right-home mirror compensates.

Esc on A position. A on L3 = Esc. The position is otherwise unused on a number layer (A would be a left-pinky-home keypress during numeric input — unlikely). Provides a backup Esc reachable from L3 in addition to the L1 Bsp-thumb Esc.

Tab on Tab-thumb (instead of typical 0). v1.12.2 placed Tab on the L3 Tab-thumb because Excel-style spreadsheet cell navigation is the dominant use case for L3-with-Tab. 0 lives on Spc-thumb instead. Cells navigate with Tab; numbers type into cells; flow is uninterrupted.

Tap Dances on this layer

None. L3 uses only direct keycodes. Numpad-style digit input does not benefit from Tap Dance behaviour.

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• Modifier mirror on right home is experimental. The Ctrl/Alt/Shift/Gui assignments on N/E/I/O were tuned for matching the L0 HRM order. Whether they actually help in practice (Ctrl+1 tab-switch during numeric input) requires usage data.
• Brackets on pinky verticals only. Curly braces {} and square brackets [] are not on L3; for those, switch to L2 or L9. Acceptable because numeric expressions rarely use curly or square brackets.

Purpose

L4 is the cursor-and-document-navigation layer. Arrows, word-skip, page navigation, line begin / end, and the PC keyboard utility keys (CapsLock, Insert, Delete, ScrollLock, Pause). Modifier mirror on left home for shift-arrow selection.

Design rationale

Arrows on NEIO. Right home row: ← (N), ↓ (E), ↑ (I), → (O). NEIO is the canonical "directional" home-row pattern, also reused on L5 Mouse pointer, L8 focus, and L8 window-move. One mental model serves four directional layers.

Word-skip on the row above. Ctrl+arrow for word-jump on right top — Ctrl+← on L, Ctrl+↓ on U, Ctrl+↑ on Y, Ctrl+→ on '. Same NEIO ordering one row up. The user does not need a separate Ctrl HRM — the keys already encode Ctrl+arrow as a single press.

Page navigation on the row below. Home / PgDn / PgUp / End on right bottom (H, ',', '.', '/'). Vertical layout with the most-used (PgDn for scrolling down through a document) on the strongest finger of the row.

Modifier mirror on left home. LGui, LAlt, LCtrl, LShift on A, R, S, T. While the right hand navigates with arrows, the left hand can apply modifiers — Shift+arrow for selection, Ctrl+arrow combined with the right-top word-skip for explicit Ctrl-Shift selection. The L4 trigger is a hold (Spc), so left-hand HRMs on A/R/S/T are unavailable; the L4 mirror replicates them.

PC utility keys on left. CapsLock on P, Insert on C, Delete on D, ScrollLock on Q, Pause/Break on X. These keys are rare but must exist for "complete keyboard" parity. Q and X were chosen because they are unused on L4 navigation and stay out of the way.

Tab on Ent-thumb. When L4 is active, the right Ent-thumb becomes Tab. Repeated Tab sequences (form navigation, autocomplete) work without leaving the layer.

Tap Dances on this layer

None. L4 uses only direct keycodes and standard modifier keycodes.

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• No End-of-Document / Begin-of-Document shortcuts. Ctrl+Home / Ctrl+End would require combining the L4 home/end with the left-home Ctrl mirror; works in practice but feels slower than a dedicated key. Acceptable trade-off given the rarity.
• ScrollLock and Pause are nearly-never-used keys. They occupy positions that could otherwise be empty. The argument for keeping them is keyboard completeness — a Cadence user should not need a physical PC keyboard for any standard PC function.

Purpose

L5 lets the user move the mouse pointer, scroll, and click without leaving the home row. Reachable two ways: a momentary tap+hold on Spc (for quick clicks), or a persistent toggle via DF(5) on the L4 F-position (for sustained mouse work). Exit persistent via DF(0) on the Spc-thumb of L5.

Design rationale

Triple-action Spc solves the v1.9 HRM-blocking problem. v1.9 used bilateral F+U for Mouse — but holding F or U blocks Ctrl on the active hand (S or E HRM unavailable). For multi-select (Ctrl+click) and range-select (Shift+click) the user could not modify mouse buttons. v1.11.0 redesigned: Spc tap+hold triggers Mouse, leaving both hands free to use HRMs.

NEIO pointer movement. Right home row: ← / ↓ / ↑ / → for the pointer (KC_MS_L/D/U/R). Same NEIO pattern as L4, L8 — one directional model.

Wheel scroll on the row below. Wheel-left / down / up / right on right bottom (H, ',', '.', '/'). Mirrors the L4 page-navigation row positionally — page-scroll and wheel-scroll are conceptually similar.

Mouse buttons on right thumbs. BTN1 (left click) on Bsp-thumb, BTN2 (right click) on Ent-thumb. Most clicks come from BTN1 on the dominant Bsp position. BTN3 (middle click) on U — rare enough for a slightly off position.

Modifier mirror on left home. LGui, LAlt, LCtrl, LShift on A, R, S, T. Shift+click for range-select, Ctrl+click for multi-select. Same rationale as L4 modifier mirror.

DF(5) for persistent mode. The momentary Spc tap+hold is great for quick clicks but tiring for sustained pointer work (selecting several things, dragging windows). Persistent toggle via DF(5) on L4 F-position lets the user "enter mouse mode" until manually exiting via DF(0) on L5 Spc-thumb. Persistent mode requires entering L4 first (Hold Spc → tap F-pos), then releasing Spc — counter-intuitive but unambiguous.

Tap Dances on this layer

None.

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• Tap+hold ergonomics. The Spc tap-then-press-and-hold gesture must be distinct from a normal tap and from a normal hold. The 200 ms tipping term gives some buffer; real-world false-trigger rate is on the v1.11.x ROADMAP.
• Pointer acceleration tuning. QMK mouse settings are set in the Vial settings section as numeric IDs that are not self-documenting. Semantic mapping is on the v2.0 ROADMAP.

Purpose

L6 carries F1–F12 in a numpad-spatial arrangement on the left hand, plus media controls (Prev / Vol- / Vol+ / Next, screen brightness, Mute, Play/Stop) on the right. PrintScreen on Spc-thumb because PrintScreen is a media-output-style function (capture screen → buffer).

Design rationale

Bilateral F-key trigger via F + U. Middle-top fingers, both hands. Letters chosen for moderate frequency in DE+EN — not the rarest possible, but acceptable for hold-detection. F-keys are the most-used "non-alpha" content after symbols and numbers, deserving a strong access pair.

F-keys numpad-spatial on left. F7-F8-F9 on top, F4-F5-F6 on home, F1-F2-F3 on bottom (W-F-P / R-S-T / X-C-D positions). Matches the L3 Numbers numpad layout — F-keys "are" numbers conceptually, indexed by the IDE / system. F10, F11, F12 fill the leftmost column (Q-A-Z positions) since they are less-frequently-used than F1–F9.

Media controls on right home. Prev / Vol- / Vol+ / Next on N, E, I, O. NEIO again — but here as "directional" through media (back/forward, down/up volume).

Screen brightness on right bottom. Bri- on the comma position, Bri+ on the period position. Less-frequent than volume, takes the row below.

Mute and Play/Stop on right thumbs. Mute on Ent-thumb (instant access during a meeting), Play/Stop Tap Dance on Bsp-thumb (TD(24): tap = Play, hold = Stop).

PrintScreen on left Spc-thumb. v1.12.0 addition. PrintScreen is conceptually a screen-output capture, grouping it with media-output controls. The left thumb is unanchored during F+U bilateral hold (whichever right-hand finger triggered, the left thumb is free).

Tap Dances on this layer

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• F-key strength order is fixed by the F-number, not by user frequency. F11 (full-screen toggle, very common in browsers) sits on the left pinky home, a weaker position than F5 (refresh, also common). The numpad-spatial mnemonic was prioritised over per-F-key frequency tuning.

Purpose

L7 is the layer for shell sessions, scripting, and code editing. It carries the operators and patterns that programmers and shell users hit dozens of times per hour — pipes, redirects, logical operators, path navigation, comparisons, expansions — placed so they type without leaving the layer or escaping to L2 Symbols.

Layer access is bilateral via Hold W or Hold Y (ring fingers, top row). Both letters are low-frequency in DE+EN, which gives clean hold-detection without per-key tipping-term tuning. The bilateral trigger means whichever hand is freer in the moment activates the layer; the other hand types.

Design rationale

Strongest fingers get the most-frequent operators. The strongest left index position (T) holds | as a pipe Tap Dance: tap emits |, hold emits | with surrounding spaces (the formatting habit when piping in scripts). The mirror right index position (N) holds the path Tap Dance: tap=/, hold=~/, double=../ — three semantic variants of "navigate the filesystem" on a single key.

Operators cluster by domain. Left home is shell territory (|| on A, 2>&1 on R, && on S, pipe on T). Right home is expression territory (path on N, $()/${} on E, !=/== on I, =>/-> on O). The split mirrors how operators tend to group in practice: a redirect on the left, an expansion on the right.

Bottom rows carry literals — except C, which earned a Tap Dance. Backtick Tap Dance on C (TD(58), see table), backslash on D, tilde on the comma position, exit-status ($?) on H. The C-position backtick became a TD in v1.12.3 because a single key now delivers three semantic variants for code typing: a dead-key tap (composes with the next vowel if any), a committed-literal hold (forces the backtick out as a literal regardless of what follows), and a Markdown code-fence opener on double-tap. The other bottom-row entries appear less often than the operator pairs above and remain second-tier positions.

Thumbs are the quote cluster. Single quote on Spc-thumb, double quote on Tab-thumb, backtick on Bsp-thumb, Tab on Ent-thumb. Mnemonic: thumbs = quoting while in Code & CLI. Tab on Ent-thumb specifically supports shell-autocomplete sequences without leaving the layer. The Bsp-thumb backtick is the simple dead-key access path; the C-position holds the richer TD(58) for explicit-commit and code-fence flows.

OS dead-key interaction. In US-International OS mode, the characters ' " ` ~ ^ are dead keys. During code typing this rarely interferes: code identifiers usually start with consonants, which the OS treats as non-combining and emits as two literal characters. The thumb-quote cluster therefore feels literal in practice, even though OS-level dead-key behaviour is technically active.

Tap Dances on this layer

Macros on this layer

Direct keycodes on this layer

• D — \ (backslash, escape character)
• , — ~ (tilde, also home-dir reference distinct from N's ~/ Tap Dance hold)
• Spc-thumb — ' (single quote)
• Tab-thumb — " (double quote)
• Ent-thumb — Tab (shell autocomplete)
• Bsp-thumb — ` (backtick — simple dead-key access; TD(58) on C carries the richer variants)

Known limitations & open questions

• Top row largely empty. Apart from W and Y as triggers, the top row carries no L7 content. Intentional reserve space for future idioms (set -e, set -o pipefail) if they prove worth a shortcut.
• Right bottom has space. Only H and the comma position are filled. . and / are open candidates.
• Dead-key edge case. Thumb-quote immediately before a vowel and immediately after a quoted identifier may compose at OS level. Escape: dead key + Space + vowel.

Purpose

L8 is the tiling-window-manager layer. Workspaces 1–10 on the left (numpad-spatial), focus and window-move arrows on the right (NEIO again, with ⌘ and ⌘⇧ prefixes), Kill / Float / Fullscreen on the thumbs. Designed for i3, Sway, AwesomeWM, hyprland, or any WM that uses ⌘+digit (Super+digit) for workspace switching.

Design rationale

Bilateral pinky-bottom trigger. Z and / are the lowest-frequency letters in both DE and EN. Hold-detection on these positions has the cleanest behaviour of all bilateral trigger pairs. Compensates for L8 being a "high-cost" layer (window operations are deliberate, not flow operations).

Workspaces in numpad-spatial layout, matching L3 Numbers. WS7-WS8-WS9 on top (W, F, P), WS4-WS5-WS6 on home (R, S, T), WS1-WS2-WS3 on bottom (X, C, D), WS10 on Spc-thumb. The user holds one numpad-spatial layout for both digits and workspaces — dual-purpose muscle memory.

Tap = go-to-workspace, Hold = move-window-to-workspace. TD(35)–TD(44): tap emits ⌘+N, hold emits ⌘⇧+N. Both operations are paired in any tiling WM workflow ("send window to workspace 3, follow it" = move + go), and Tap Dance combines them on one key per workspace.

NEIO focus on right home. ⌘+←, ⌘+↓, ⌘+↑, ⌘+→ on N, E, I, O. Same directional pattern as L4/L5; here the modifier elevates "move cursor" to "move window focus."

NEIO window-move on right bottom. ⌘⇧+←, ⌘⇧+↓, ⌘⇧+↑, ⌘⇧+→ on H, ',', '.', '/'. One row below focus, with Shift added to the Cmd modifier — "elevated focus" = window-move. Mnemonic kinship with L4 page-nav row.

Window operations on thumbs. Kill (⌘⇧+Q) on Tab-thumb, Float (⌘+Space) on Ent-thumb, Fullscreen (⌘+F) on Bsp-thumb. Three high-impact actions on the easily-reachable thumb cluster.

Tap Dances on this layer

Direct keycodes on this layer

• Tab-thumb — ⌘⇧+Q (Kill window)
• Ent-thumb — ⌘+Space (Float toggle)
• Bsp-thumb — ⌘+F (Fullscreen toggle)
• Right home (N/E/I/O) — ⌘+←/↓/↑/→ (focus arrows)
• Right bottom (H/,/.//) — ⌘⇧+←/↓/↑/→ (window-move arrows)

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• Hardcoded ⌘ prefix. The layer assumes the user's WM uses ⌘ (Super) as the prefix. For WMs using a different prefix, the TDs and direct keycodes would need rewriting. Acceptable since this is the user's daily WM.
• WM-specific bindings (Kill, Float, Fullscreen) need real-world validation. ⌘⇧+Q, ⌘+Space, ⌘+F are common defaults but not universal. On the v1.11.x ROADMAP.

Purpose

L9 is the dedicated bracket layer. All four bracket pairs ((), [], <>, {}) on the home rows of both hands as Tap Dance pairs (tap-open / hold-close). Backslash on right-bottom slash position. App/Menu key on both Spc-thumb and Bsp-thumb.

Design rationale

Bilateral ring-bottom trigger. X and . — second-rarest bilateral pair after Z+/. Cleaner hold-detection than the v1.9 D+H pair (which carried HRM-blocking issues). The trigger move from D+H to X+. happened in v1.11.0.

Tap-open / hold-close on every bracket. Across all four bracket types: tap = open, hold = close, double = close. The dual encoding lets the user type a bracket pair as tap-hold without rolling — useful for quickly adding both open and close around a cursor position. Mnemonic: "press once to open, longer to close."

Bilateral mirror — same brackets, same fingers, both hands. Left home: { on A, < on R, [ on S, ( on T. Right home: ( on N, [ on E, < on I, { on O. The pinky-to-index gradient runs {-<-[-( on both hands, so the strongest finger gets the most-used bracket type (round parens are the most common in code, square less common, angle and curly rarer).

App/Menu on both unallocated thumbs. Inherited from Cadenza's left-thumb App/Menu, relocated to L9 in v1.11.1 because the original G/M-hold App/Menu was never invoked in daily use. Placed on both Spc-thumb and Bsp-thumb of L9 for either-hand reachability — App/Menu is unfrequent enough that finger choice does not matter.

Backslash on the right bottom slash position. When L9 is active, the slash key emits backslash. Useful for Windows path manipulation in code editors. Distinct from L7's D-position backslash, which is for shell escape sequences.

Tap Dances on this layer

Direct keycodes on this layer

• Spc-thumb, Bsp-thumb — App/Menu (KC_APPLICATION)
• Right bottom slash (/) — \ (backslash)

Macros on this layer

None.

Known limitations & open questions

• Hold-detection on X and . under code-editing load. X and . are low-frequency in DE+EN prose but slightly more common in code (X for 0xFF hex literals, . for property access). Real-world false-trigger rate during heavy code editing is on the v1.11.x ROADMAP.
• Bracket duplication with L2. TD(25)–TD(28) appear on both L9 home and L2 right-top. Acceptable cost (see L2 rationale).

Purpose

L11 holds the two firmware-control commands: QK_BOOT (jump to bootloader for re-flashing) and QK_REBOOT (soft reboot). The layer exists to keep these commands reachable without an external tool, but its access design ensures they cannot be triggered accidentally during normal typing.

Design rationale

Deliberately uncomfortable access. The trigger is a 500 ms long-hold on Q (left pinky top, TD(46)) or ' (right pinky top, TD(47)). Pinky-top is the worst position on the board ergonomically; 500 ms is more than double the standard 200 ms tipping term. Together they make accidental activation effectively impossible — but the user can still reach the layer when needed by deliberately holding.

Symmetric placement of the two commands. QK_BOOT on left S-position and right E-position (Ctrl HRM mirrors). QK_REBOOT on left T-position and right R-position. Symmetry across hands lets either-hand activation reach either command. The placement deliberately keeps the commands on home-row middle columns (away from pinky-top, where accidental presses while still holding the trigger could cascade).

Two separate distinct presses required. The user must (1) long-hold Q or ', then (2) press a separate home-row key. A single accidental long-hold does not trigger anything destructive — there is no command on the trigger key itself.

The only intentional pinky-top hold in the layout. Every other layer trigger uses a stronger finger or a thumb. L11 breaks the rule because the trigger discomfort is the safety gate.

Tap Dances on this layer

None — L11 contains only direct keycodes for firmware commands.

Macros on this layer

None.

Direct keycodes on this layer

• S, E — QK_BOOT (jump to bootloader)
• T, R — QK_REBOOT (soft reboot)
• All other positions — empty (KC_NO)

Known limitations & open questions

• Safety review needed. No accidental L11 activation has occurred since v1.5.0 introduction, but the absence of false-positive evidence is not the same as proving the design is robust. Periodic review on the ROADMAP.
• 500 ms threshold under stress typing. If the user is typing very slowly (interrupted, distracted), a single long Q or ' press could approach 500 ms. The home-row second-press requirement is the secondary safety; L11 alone with no second key does nothing harmful.