Why I built fns: I'm addicted to shortcuts.

I’m a shortcut addict. If I shave off even a second of mouse time, I remember exactly where the second was saved. That obsession with doing everything from the keyboard has had me hunting for the right tool for a long time.

What I eventually realized is that the prime shortcut keys have already become big-tech battlegrounds. Alfred and Raycast fight over ⌘ + Space. ChatGPT and Claude fight over ⌥ + Space. Whoever owns the global shortcut slot owns the start of user lock-in.

In the middle of all that, one key sat almost empty. Bottom-left corner of the keyboard, the fn key. It’s in the most accessible position of any modifier, and yet macOS’s default behavior is to pop open the emoji picker. It doesn’t conflict with any big-tech app. Realizing there was potential in that empty seat is where this started.

Why AI-era productivity feels so clunky

Watch someone using AI today and you’ll notice a quiet absurdity. The tools have never been more powerful, yet the actual workflow is more fragmented than ever.

You’re writing a document, you want to ask AI something, you open a separate app, copy the answer, switch back. You’re writing code, you switch to a browser to search a single line, a notification pops in, the thread of thought breaks. You’re trying to summarize a Slack message; midway through, another notification arrives and the context flips.

That context-switching is more expensive than people think. Between tasks your hand goes to the mouse, your eyes jump to another window, and by the time you come back, the idea you were holding in your head has scattered. For solo founders, freelancers, designers, developers — anyone working on a keyboard all day — this cost compounds until it’s eating half the day.

Being good at AI isn’t about picking the right model. The shorter the distance between AI and your workflow matters more.

Where existing tools fall short

The keyboard productivity tools out there share one common problem: the barrier to entry is high for all of them.

Karabiner-Elements, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon — these are powerful. Really powerful. But for someone trying them for the first time, you hit a wall at “okay, where do I even start?” Initial setup takes days. The learning curve is steep. The statistics say most users quit somewhere in the middle.

Search-based launchers like Raycast and Alfred aren’t lightweight either. Basic search is fine, but if you actually want to use workflows and extensions properly, you end up reading documentation for hours. And the detail power users want — distinguishing left and right modifiers, chaining modifier presses to trigger different actions, mapping user-defined shortcuts to control other shortcuts — runs into limits eventually.

In the end, the entire market is built around advanced users. There was a big gap in the middle. A tool anyone can set up in five minutes, and that the deep-divers can spend a month customizing. Was that possible?

Take text replacement, for example

A small example: text replacement. macOS’s built-in text replacement is too basic. You type ;eml and your email shows up — that’s about it. And even that breaks silently in third-party browsers, Slack, and most Electron apps.

On the other end, tools like TextExpander or Espanso can do everything. But if a first-time user wants to do “insert tomorrow’s date, then position the cursor two characters in from the end of the line, then paste the clipboard content,” they’re spending a while in the manual.

In fns, a first-time user picks from a rich template library and clicks. At the same time, a power user has full access to cursor-position control, input-value adjustment, date auto-insertion. Easy to start, deeper the further you go. That’s the principle that runs through every feature.

How fns approaches it

So fns is built like this.

fn is the default global trigger. It doesn’t conflict with any big-tech app — that empty seat. But if you’d rather use something else, the shortcut is fully remappable. Cmd+Space, Option+Space, Caps Lock — whatever key you want.

AI lives inside your workflow. From any text input on your Mac, a single fn shortcut calls Claude, Gemini, or an on-device model like Apple Foundation Model or Windows Foundry Local. No separate app to open, no copy-paste. AI becomes part of the flow, not a tab you switch to.

Beginners and power users, both. AI-assisted setup and a deep template library let anyone build their workflow fast. At the same time, advanced options — modifier chaining, left/right modifier distinction, user-shortcut chaining — are right there, exposed.

Conflicts kept to a minimum. A careful binding system keeps shortcuts from stepping on other apps. If another app already owns a key, fns gets out of its way automatically.

Who it’s for

fns is for people pushing their digital productivity — solo founders, freelancers, designers, developers, writers. The goal is to cut the time bleeding out of repetitive work and slot AI into your workflow naturally so your train of thought doesn’t keep breaking.

Until now, productivity tools were mostly built for advanced users. fns wants to bend that curve. It has to be usable for anyone, and at the same time endlessly deep for people who want to dig in. That principle hasn’t moved from day one.

What’s next

fns ships with eight core features: Text, Speech, Clipboard, Query, App Launcher, Scroll, Zoom, Click Mode. These are the things I’d want on a brand-new Mac before anything else.

If you want to feel it before deciding, try it in the browser. Curious what else lives behind the fn key? See the fn key shortcuts most people don’t know about. Thanks for reading this far. The fn key appreciates it.