Ship code from your couch. Control your AI coding assistant with a gamepad.

VibePad is a macOS menu bar app that turns your gamepad into a full coding controller — optimized for AI-assisted development with Claude Code and Codex CLI.

Accept AI suggestions, scroll through code, switch apps, dictate with voice — all without touching your keyboard.

1. Connect your PS5, Xbox, or MFi controller
2. VibePad maps buttons to keyboard shortcuts optimized for Claude Code and Codex CLI
3. Accept AI suggestions, navigate code, switch tabs — all from your controller

• Two-layer mapping — default layer + L1 modifier layer doubles your button count
• Smart Paste — clipboard-aware: Ctrl+V for images, Cmd+V for text
• Left stick = arrow keys — hysteresis thresholds and hold-to-repeat
• Right stick = scroll — continuous smooth scrolling
• L1+stick = app switch & mouse — switch apps or move the cursor without leaving the couch
• Mouse clicks — L3/R3 for left/right click
• Hold-to-repeat — configurable per-button repeat delay and interval
• Trigger modes — fire on press, release, or both (e.g. hold-to-talk for voice input)
• HUD overlay — shows action labels on every button press
• JSON config — full customization at ~/.vibepad/config.json
• Menu bar app — lives in your status bar, launch at login

1. Download the latest release from GitHub Releases
2. Move VibePad.app to Applications
3. Launch and grant Accessibility permission when prompted

Accessibility permission is required for keyboard injection — this is how VibePad sends keystrokes to your apps.

VibePad writes its default config to ~/.vibepad/config.json on first launch. Edit this file to customize your layout, then restart the app.

{
  "version": 1,
  "profile": "claude-code",
  "mappings": {
    "buttonA": { "type": "keystroke", "key": "return", "modifiers": [] },
    "buttonX": { "type": "keystroke", "key": "c", "modifiers": ["control"] },
    "buttonMenu": { "type": "typeText", "text": "/" }
  },
  "l1Mappings": {
    "buttonB": { "type": "keystroke", "key": "delete", "modifiers": [] }
  },
  "stickConfig": {
    "leftStickDeadzone": 0.3,
    "rightStickDeadzone": 0.2,
    "arrowPressThreshold": 0.5,
    "arrowReleaseThreshold": 0.3,
    "scrollSensitivity": 15.0
  }
}

• keystroke — press a key with optional modifiers. key is any key name from the key list, modifiers is an array of "command", "control", "shift", "option".
• typeText — type a string character by character. Use \n for Enter.
• smartPaste — clipboard-aware paste: sends Ctrl+V when the clipboard contains an image, Cmd+V otherwise. No key or modifiers needed.
• leftMouseClick / rightMouseClick — simulate a mouse click at the current cursor position.

buttonA, buttonB, buttonX, buttonY, dpadUp, dpadDown, dpadLeft, dpadRight, leftShoulder, rightShoulder, leftTrigger, rightTrigger, leftThumbstickButton, rightThumbstickButton, buttonMenu, buttonOptions

Note: leftShoulder (L1) is reserved as the modifier layer key and cannot be remapped.

Letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), return, escape, space, tab, delete, forwardDelete, arrows (upArrow, downArrow, leftArrow, rightArrow), punctuation (grave, minus, equal, leftBracket, rightBracket, backslash, semicolon, quote, comma, period, slash), function keys (f1-f12).

View interactive layout on PadCrafter

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• PS5 DualSense, Xbox, or MFi controller
• Accessibility permission (for keyboard injection)

Built with Swift, AppKit, GameController framework, and CGEvent.

Inspired by enjoy2 — a macOS joystick-to-keyboard mapper.

Add the badge to your project README:

[![Built with VibePad](https://img.shields.io/badge/Built_with-VibePad_🎮-blue?style=flat-square)](https://vibepad.now)

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — source available, non-commercial use permitted. See LICENSE for details.