kmk_firmware/README.md

KMK: Clackety Keyboards Powered by Python

Documentation available at 📖 kmkfw.io.

KMK is a feature-rich and beginner-friendly firmware for computer keyboards written and configured in CircuitPython.

KMK is currently looking for maintainers. If you like keyboards and/or Python, and ideally have contributed to KMK in the past, and are interested in (co-)maintaining KMK, comment on the relevant GitHub issue or drop by the Matrix channel below.

If you need support with KMK or just want to say hi, find us in #kmkfw:klar.sh on Matrix. This channel is bridged to Discord here for convenience.

Features

• Fully configured through a single, easy to understand Python file that lives on a "flash-drive"-esque space on your microcontroller - edit on the go without DFU or other devtooling available!
• Single-piece or two-piece split keyboards are supported
• Chainable keys such as KC.LWIN(KC.L) to lock the screen on a Windows PC
• Built-in Unicode macros, including emojis
• RGB underglow and LED backlights
• One key can turn into many more based on how many times you tap it
• Bluetooth HID and split keyboards. No more wires.

Getting Started

KMK requires CircuitPython version 7.0 or higher. Our getting started guide can be found here.

The KMK Team

KMK was originally authored by @klardotsh and @kdb424 over the winter of 2018-19, and has been contributed to by numerous others since. Contributions are welcome from all, whether it's in the form of code, documentation, hardware designs, feature ideas, or anything else that comes to mind. A list of KMK's contributors can be found on GitHub.

While Adafruit employees and affiliates are occasionally found in the commit log and their help has been crucial to KMK's success, KMK is not an official Adafruit project, and the Core team is not compensated by Adafruit for its development.

Code Style

KMK uses Black with a Python 3.6 target and, (controversially?) single quotes. Further code styling is enforced with isort and flake8 with several plugins. make fix-isort fix-formatting before a commit is a good idea, and CI will fail if inbound code does not adhere to these formatting rules. Some exceptions are found in setup.cfg loosening the rules in isolated cases, notably user_keymaps (which is also not subject to Black formatting for reasons documented in pyproject.toml).

Tests

Unit tests within the tests folder mock various CircuitPython modules to allow them to be executed in a desktop development environment.

Execute tests using the command python -m unittest.

License, Copyright, and Legal

All software in this repository is licensed under the GNU Public License, version 3. All documentation and hardware designs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Contributions to this repository must use these licenses unless otherwise agreed to by the Core team.

Due to ethical and legal concerns, any works derived from GitHub Copilot or similar artificial intelligence tooling are unacceptable for inclusion in any first-party KMK repository or other code collection. We further recommend not using GitHub Copilot while developing anything KMK-related, regardless of intent to submit upstream.