Hotkey Reference

Pensum ships without any pre-bound keyboard shortcuts. Obsidian asks plugins not to claim hotkeys at install time so they never collide with your existing bindings — you assign whatever you want, when you want, under Settings → Hotkeys → search “Pensum”.

The combos below are suggestions: combinations the Pensum team uses, audited against Obsidian core and the most-used community plugins (Tasks, Templater, Dataview, QuickAdd, Calendar, Excalidraw, Advanced Tables) so they’re unlikely to collide. Adopt them as-is, change them, or skip them — the command palette (Cmd+P / Ctrl+P → “Pensum”) gives you the entire plugin without binding anything.

Recommended bindings

Capture

Action	Suggested macOS	Suggested Windows / Linux	Command
Open Quick Add	Cmd+Shift+A	Ctrl+Shift+A	`pensum:quick-add`
Capture from selection	Cmd+Shift+T	Ctrl+Shift+T	`pensum:capture-from-selection`
Capture wiki stub	Cmd+Shift+W	Ctrl+Shift+W	`pensum:capture-stub`
Start/stop meeting recording	Cmd+Shift+R	Ctrl+Shift+R	`pensum:start-recording`
Toggle complete on cursor task	Cmd+Shift+X	Ctrl+Shift+X	`pensum:quick-complete`
Add cursor task to Today	Cmd+Shift+Y	Ctrl+Shift+Y	`pensum:add-cursor-task-to-today`
Defer cursor task by 1 day	—	—	`pensum:defer-cursor-task`
Toggle cursor task waiting	—	—	`pensum:mark-cursor-task-waiting`

Views

Action	Suggested macOS	Suggested Windows / Linux	Command
Open Today	Cmd+Shift+D	Ctrl+Shift+D	`pensum:open-today`

The remaining view commands have no suggested binding — there are too many to fit in a useful hotkey budget. Bind whichever you reach for daily:

Command	What it does
`pensum:open-home`	Open the Pensum Home dashboard
`pensum:open-inbox`	Open the Inbox view
`pensum:open-waiting`	Open the Waiting view (status `[w]` tasks)
`pensum:open-week`	Open the Forecast view
`pensum:open-projects`	Open the By Project view
`pensum:open-search`	Open the Search view
`pensum:open-calendar`	Open the Calendar view
`pensum:open-filters`	Open the Filters view
`pensum:open-activity`	Open the Activity view
`pensum:open-curate`	Open the Curate Inbox view
`pensum:open-agent-captures`	Open the Agent Captures review queue
`pensum:open-project-page`	Open the Project Page sidebar panel
`pensum:open-meeting-page`	Open the Meeting Page sidebar panel
`pensum:open-weekly-review`	Start the Weekly Review

Maintenance

Command	What it does
`pensum:new-project`	Open the New Project modal
`pensum:rescan-vault`	Force a full vault rescan (also runs cleanup)
`pensum:export-tasks-ics`	Export tasks to `Pensum/Exports/tasks.ics` for calendar subscription
`pensum:mcp-config`	Print the MCP server config snippet for your client
Template commands (`pensum:template-<name>`)	Auto-registered for each template in `.pensum/templates/`

Pensum’s list views (Today, Inbox, Forecast, By Project, Search, Filters, Waiting, Weekly Review) come with vim-style navigation that doesn’t require any Obsidian hotkey binding — it activates automatically when you click into a view. Press ? while focused on any list view to see the active key map.

Key	Action
`j` / `↓`	Next row
`k` / `↑`	Previous row
`g g`	Top of list
`Shift+G`	Bottom of list
`Enter`	Open the row in the task editor
`x` / `Space`	Complete the row (or selection)
`e`	Edit
`t`	Toggle “Add to Today”
`d`	Defer / hide until
`r`	Reschedule due date
`Shift+Del`	Delete (with confirm)
`v`	Toggle row in multi-select
`Shift+J` / `Shift+K`	Extend multi-select down/up
`*`	Select all visible rows
`Esc`	Clear multi-select / blur input back to list
`/`	Focus the view’s filter input (where present)
`?`	Show contextual help

Suggested-binding rationale

A few notes on the specific combos suggested above:

Cmd+Shift+W for Capture Stub (instead of Cmd+Shift+S) avoids the Windows “Save As” conflict.
Cmd+Shift+T for Capture from selection overlaps with Obsidian’s “Reopen closed tab” — if you’d rather keep tab-reopen, bind Pensum’s capture to something else (e.g. Cmd+Shift+I).
Cmd+Shift+D for Today is clean against Obsidian core; some plugins use it for “duplicate” — check your plugin list before adopting it.

If a hotkey isn’t firing after you bind it, Settings → Hotkeys highlights the conflict — another plugin or Obsidian itself has claimed it.

How to assign

Open Settings → Hotkeys
Search for “Pensum” (or the specific command name)
Click the + next to a command and press the combination you want
To reassign later, click the existing hotkey to remove it, then click + again

Changes take effect immediately — no restart needed.

Multi-platform tips

Use Cmd on macOS and Ctrl on Windows / Linux. Obsidian normalizes these in the binding UI.
Avoid Cmd+number — reserved for tab switching.
Avoid single-modifier combinations (Cmd+L) — they collide with editor operations.
Three-key combos (e.g. Cmd+Shift+letter) are the safest for plugins.

What if I want a hotkey-free workflow?

Every Pensum action is in the command palette (Cmd+P / Ctrl+P → “Pensum”), and every list view supports vim-style navigation that doesn’t need any global binding. You can drive the entire plugin without claiming a single Obsidian hotkey.