Keyboard-first developers struggle to shape fluent editor workflows
Developers who want to work keyboard-first report that VS Code can be awkward to customize and navigate without a mouse, while its many shortcuts are hard to discover and learn. Some switch to Neovim or resort to CSS tweaks; people learning Vim and Emacs also describe practice as tedious. The evidence includes feature requests and anecdotes, some dating back years, so the size and urgency of the paying market are uncertain.
For keyboard-oriented developers using VS Code and developers learning modal editors. Mentioned from May 2016 to Aug 2025 on Bluesky, GitHub and Hacker News.
12 different people described this problem in 11 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 4.0/10
- Pain
- 4.7/10
- Frequency
- 9.3/10
- Willingness to pay
- 2.9/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
Ultimately, I was unable to create a consistent keyboard oriented workflow in vscode, and have therefore been using neovim
Vscode was never meant for the workflow, so even small things like moving to the sidebars and interacting with them using the keyboard is a pain in the ass. Setting up custom hotkeys is an exercise in patience, and you are constantly fighting with native hotkeys that try to do the same thing
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 4 places to find your first customers
- 10 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks