alice-emacs-mods

name: alice-emacs-mods description: Tour of Alice's heavily-customized terminal Emacs — Causal transients, Worlding org, proof tooling, MLX chat, voice, and clipboard. metadata: trit: 0

Alice's Emacs Mods

Read this BEFORE editing ~/.emacs.d/init.el, suggesting packages, or explaining why some keybinding does something unexpected. Most surprises here are intentional and load-bearing.

Shape of the install

• Build: emacs-nox 30.2 from Nix store (/nix/store/...emacs-nox-30.2)
• Frontend: terminal only — no GUI Emacs. Always assume (display-graphic-p) = nil
• Daemons: typically 2–4 running at once (factory, server, claude-crdt, horsin-around, …)
  • factory = full init.el (the "real" one)
  • claude-crdt / horsin-around = -Q daemons, started for specific purposes
  • sockets: /var/folders/.../T/emacs501/<name>
• Init: ~/.emacs.d/init.el (700 lines), `/.emacs.d/early-init.el`
• Custom code: ~/.emacs.d/lisp/ (e.g. org-worlding.el), ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/ (whisper.el, chatgpt-shell, shell-maker)
• Packages: package.el + use-package (use-package-always-ensure t), MELPA + GNU + nonGNU. ~/.emacs.d/elpa/ ≈ 70 packages
• No straight, no elpaca, no doom, no spacemacs

The dominant pattern: Causal transients on C-o

causal is a plurigrid fork of casual-suite — Transient-based menus covering most built-in modes plus several additions. The convention:

• C-o opens the mode's transient menu in dired, isearch, ibuffer, info, calc, bookmarks, agenda, calendar, compile/grep, re-builder, eshell, help, man, csv, image, ediff, eww, make, ghostty, gnus (group/summary/ article/message), portal, proof.
• M-m opens transients for elisp-mode, html-mode, css-mode.
• Globally, C-o is causal-editkit-main-tmenu (the umbrella menu).

Plurigrid additions beyond casual-suite:

Other causal modules loaded if present (require ... nil t): causal-self-walker, causal-self-walker-paperproof, causal-proof, causal-proofreader, causal-ucm, causal-xypic, causal-notebooklm, sophia-mnemosyne, causal-portal, causal-gnus.

If a C-o binding doesn't seem to work, the mode probably isn't loaded yet — Causal uses with-eval-after-load everywhere.

Org subsystem — "worlding," not GTD

• Each org file declares its own #+TODO: states. There is no global GTD configuration. Don't impose one.
• org-worlding (custom, in ~/.emacs.d/lisp/org-worlding.el) supplies faces, agenda files, capture templates, keybindings.
• Heading colors are uniformly #7AA2F7 (light blue) across all 8 levels — this is intentional via set-face-attribute after org-faces loads.
• org-bullets for pretty bullets, org-roam at ~/org-roam/, org-download for screenshots/yank to ~/org-images/.
• C-c a agenda, C-c c capture, C-c n … for org-roam.
• org-mcp — exposes org over MCP.

Email = Gnus over Gmail/Workspace

Configured for barton@plurigrid.com via IMAP imap.gmail.com:993 SSL + SMTP smtp.gmail.com:587 STARTTLS. Auth in ~/.authinfo. Start with C-c g. Gnus dirs all under ~/.emacs.d/gnus/. Causal-gnus binds C-o in every Gnus mode.

Lisps / proof tooling

• paredit, rainbow-delimiters, magit, avy
• cider, clojure-mode, parseclj, parseedn, sesman — Clojure
• hy-mode — Hy
• proof-general + narya — Narya is the active proof assistant
• causal-proof binds C-o in proof-mode-map; causal-portal binds C-o in narya-mode-map so Narya hops live inside the Portal menu.

LLMs in the buffer

• chatgpt-shell (xenodium) loaded from ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/chatgpt-shell with shell-maker next to it. Uses local MLX server at http://127.0.0.1:8009 running mlx-community/Olmo-3-1125-32B-4bit ("Olmo-3-32B"). Anthropic key from ANTHROPIC_API_KEY env. OpenAI key falls back to literal "local".
• agent-shell + acp — Agent Client Protocol.
• mcp-server-lib, org-mcp — MCP from inside Emacs.

Voice → text on F9

whisper.el (in ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/) bound to F9:

• whisper-cli from flox (NOT auto-installed by whisper.el; whisper-install-whispercpp = nil)
• Model: ~/v/ggml-base.en.bin (base.en)
• macOS mic: avfoundation :1 (MacBook Pro Mic)
• Inserts at point, no timestamps. Custom whisper-command overrides the default to point at the flox binary + local model.

Keyboard

• Caps Lock → F19 → Meta (and F7 fallback for terminals that map F19→F7). Done via key-translation-map + input-decode-map so it works in both GUI and terminal frames. The user is on a Kinesis Advantage 360 + Dvorak.
• Don't suggest remapping Caps Lock — already done.

Terminal-specific UI

• xterm-mouse-mode on (terminal-only block).
• mouse-1 set point, mouse-4/5 scroll, drag copies region.
• tab-line-mode global, terminal styling: black bg / white fg, current tab inverted. C-c <left>/C-c <right> switch tabs.
• Tabs grouped by major-mode (tab-line-tabs-mode-buffers).

Tree-sitter (Emacs 30 builtin)

treesit-language-source-alist populated for ~16 languages (bash, c, cpp, css, go, html, java, js, json, markdown, python, rust, toml, tsx, typescript, yaml). M-x install-tree-sitter-grammars installs all. major-mode-remap-alist sends *-mode → *-ts-mode.

Other notable mods

• AUCTeX with latexmk -pdf as TeX-command-default, RefTeX on, cdlatex for both LaTeX and Org math. C-o in bibtex-mode.
• ledger-mode wired to hledger (not ledger). Custom reports for income statement / balance sheet / cash flow / monthly expenses. Files: *.journal, *.ledger, *.hledger. ob-ledger for org-babel.
• undo-tree with persistent history at ~/.emacs.d/undo-tree-hist/. Auto-save every 100 keys / 30s idle.
• crdt loaded — see collaborative-emacs skill for the Claude-Code ↔ Emacs CRDT setup using socket claude-crdt on port 6531.
• bbdb (contacts), bongo (music), org-drill (spaced repetition).
• clipetty — system clipboard via OSC 52 from TTY frames. Replaces the broken menu-bar-enable-clipboard button (which sets gui-* functions that no-op without a window-system frame). Enabled globally via (after-init . global-clipetty-mode).

Disabled but still present

• Emacspeak: commented out due to SwiftMac OGG decode having no cache → CPU spin. The binaural sound theme is built (see emacspeak-binaural skill) but the (load-file ...) line is commented. Re-enable at your own risk.

Things NOT to do

1. Don't suggest pbcopy/pbpaste shellouts for clipboard — clipetty already handles this via OSC 52, faster + works over SSH.
2. Don't add a global #+TODO: config — each org file owns its states.
3. Don't M-x package-install an alternative to causal-suite — the plurigrid causal fork supersedes it and adds modes you'd lose.
4. Don't override interprogram-cut-function directly; let global-clipetty-mode advise it per-frame.
5. Don't try to re-enable Emacspeak without first solving the SwiftMac OGG cache issue (it WILL spin a core).
6. Don't assume GUI Emacs — there is none.
7. Don't remove "selected packages" from the customize block at the bottom of init.el — they're how package-autoremove is governed.

Quick triage

• Something doesn't bind on C-o? Check whether the mode hook fired (with-eval-after-load) and whether causal-<mode> was required.
• "menu-bar-enable-clipboard" button doesn't paste? clipetty must be loaded; check (featurep 'clipetty) and global-clipetty-mode.
• Whisper produces nothing? Check that whisper-cli is on PATH (flox env active), that ~/v/ggml-base.en.bin exists, and that avfoundation :1 is the right mic index.
• Caps Lock not Meta? Verify the terminal sends the F19 escape — some terminals translate it to F7 instead, both are mapped.
• Org-roam DB out of sync? M-x org-roam-db-sync.

Related skills

• emacs — base ecosystem
• elisp — language reference
• emacs-color-chain — SplitMix64 → faces
• emacspeak-binaural — disabled audio theme
• collaborative-emacs — CRDT setup using claude-crdt daemon
• xenodium-elisp — chatgpt-shell / agent-shell
• proofgeneral-narya — proof assistant

Cmd+C → Emacs kill (Ghostty binding)

The user's hard requirement is Cmd+C in terminal Emacs → macOS pasteboard, Cmd+V anywhere. The full chain that delivers this:

Cmd+C in Ghostty
  → Ghostty keybind sends literal M-w (ESC w) to Emacs
  → Emacs runs kill-ring-save on the marked region
  → clipetty advice fires, emits OSC 52 to terminal
  → Ghostty receives OSC 52 and writes selection to macOS pasteboard
  → Cmd+V anywhere on the Mac pastes the killed text

The Ghostty side lives in ~/.config/ghostty/config:

keybind = cmd+c=text:\x1bw

This OVERRIDES Ghostty's default Cmd+C = copy_to_clipboard. Trade-off: you lose "copy Ghostty's mouse selection on Cmd+C". Workarounds for terminal-text capture: right-click → Copy, or mouse-drag with copy-on-select = true.

The Emacs side: clipetty must be loaded and global-clipetty-mode on. Already in init.el; verify with (featurep 'clipetty) and global-clipetty-mode.

Workflow: C-Space to set mark → move cursor → Cmd+C → text on macOS pasteboard.

Things that look like clipboard but aren't

• menu-bar-enable-clipboard — the "turn on copy paste" menu button. Sets interprogram-cut-function to gui-select-text which is a no-op in TTY frames. clipetty bypasses this entirely. Don't trust the button.
• Pressing Cmd+C with no Emacs region marked — sends M-w which kill-ring-saves an empty region (warning: "The mark is not active now"). Pasteboard unchanged. This isn't a bug; mark a region first.
• Ghostty selection + Cmd+C — no longer copies the terminal selection because the keybind override redirects Cmd+C to Emacs. Use right-click menu.

Reloading Ghostty config

Cmd+Shift+, reloads Ghostty config in place. If keybinds don't take effect, fully quit and relaunch Ghostty.

Backups

Backup of original Ghostty config saved at ~/.config/ghostty/config.bak.<ts> before the Cmd+C override was added (2026-04-19).

Color strobe (emacs-strobe-walk skill)

A separate sibling skill at ~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/ that drives every face in the frame from a SplitMix64 chain advanced once per interaction. Background, foreground, cursor, region, hl-line, mode-line (active + inactive), fringe, all font-lock-* faces, and org-level-1..8 get retinted on each tick. Strobing, deterministic, reseedable, throttled (default 40 ms minimum gap).

This is what the horsin-around daemon already runs — it was launched with -Q -l ~/horsin-around/color-walk.el (and the canonical copy is in the skill dir). Default seed is #x42D (1069). Commands: M-x horsin/enable, horsin/disable, horsin/reseed. Variables: horsin/seed, horsin/throttle.

Drop into any new daemon:

emacs --daemon=NAME -l ~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk.el
# or, into a live one:
emacsclient -s NAME -e '(load-file "~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk.el")'

Hooks installed: post-command-hook, server-visit-hook, server-after-make-frame-hook, plus :after advice on server-eval-and-print so even emacsclient -e ticks the chain.

Footgun (in the skill, repeating it here): never advise server-process-filter — it fires on every network byte and deadlocks the daemon. Recovery is kill -9. Also don't call redraw-display in the tick; force-mode-line-update t is enough and won't block on a tty frame.

Composes cleanly with emacs-color-chain (the other SplitMix64 skill — that one is on-demand single-apply via C-c g a; strobe-walk is continuous auto-tick). Don't enable both at once on the same faces.

Gay-backed strobe (merged mode)

As of 2026-04-19 there is a bridge file ~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk-gay.el that loads both skills and rewires the strobe's two helpers (horsin/-sm, horsin/-hsl) to delegate to gay--splitmix64 / gay--hsl-to-hex. Single source of truth for the math; strobe provides hooks + face spec, gay provides the color chain.

To launch a daemon with merged mode:

emacs --daemon=NAME -l ~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk-gay.el
# or hot-load into a running daemon:
emacsclient -s NAME -e '(load-file "~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk-gay.el")'

horsin/seed and gay-seed are mirrored at load time; horsin/reseed is advised to also update gay-seed. Reseeding either now retargets both the strobe trajectory and any on-demand gay-apply-chain calls.

Behavioral identity: same SplitMix64 constants, same face spec, same output — this is deduplication, not a visual change.

Takeover recipe (one-shot)

takeover.bb in this skill dir does the whole "I'm sitting down at a daemon, give me my workspace" routine in a single call. Loading this skill is enough — no need to also load emacs-strobe-walk / emacs-color-chain / tmux / org; the script pulls what it needs.

~/.claude/skills/alice-emacs-mods/takeover.bb           # server + 6 orgs + 0x42D
~/.claude/skills/alice-emacs-mods/takeover.bb factory   # same for factory daemon
~/.claude/skills/alice-emacs-mods/takeover.bb server 4 0xCAFE

What it does, in order:

1. Finds emacsclient via /nix/store/*emacs-nox-*/bin/emacsclient (with PATH / homebrew fallbacks).

2. Probes the daemon using perl -e 'alarm 3; exec @ARGV' — never hangs on a stale socket (the factory socket has bitten us; claude-crdt and server are usually live).

3. Finds N most-recent .org files across ~/worlds ~/org ~/org-roam ~/.emacs.d using stat -f '%m %N' + sort -rn (macOS stat syntax).

4. Splits every frame of the daemon into a 2×3 grid via split-window … 'below + 'right, then balance-windows, and visits one file per pane in reading order:

   w1 w4
   w2 w5
   w3 w6
   

5. Hot-loads ~/.claude/skills/emacs-strobe-walk/color-walk-gay.el and calls (horsin/reseed SEED) with an explicit seed. Gotcha: after the bridge loads, horsin/reseed is advised with arity 1 — calling it no-arg raises Wrong number of arguments. The script catches that and falls back to the no-arg form for the plain color-walk.el case.

Daemon roles (matters — don't pick the wrong one)

Lesson 2026-04-20: targeting claude-crdt placed 6 files on an invisible frame while the user watched an unrelated emacs -nw splash. Always target server unless you have a reason not to.

Attach

emacsclient -s server -t      # TTY frame in current terminal
emacsclient -s server -c      # new graphical frame (GUI build only — N/A here)

See also (added by plurigrid-asi-ghostel)

• [[plurigrid-asi-ghostel]] — ghostel (libghostty-vt) substrate for plurigrid/asi agent channels. Replaces make-comint; adds OSC-133 prompt nav, OSC-51;e shell→Emacs bridge, TRAMP-aware remote VT, ghostel-compile.

See also (added by bob-emacs-mods)

• [[bob-emacs-mods]] — operational complement of alice: ghostel mastery, multi-daemon orchestration, cross-session coordination, REPL-as-citizen, debug/recovery, session-specific team-red params.

Session cross-refs (2026-04-23, e-session)

This skill participates in the 32-skill working set assembled in /Users/alice/worlds/e session 2026-04-23 (15 new skills also created).

Outgoing references (this skill src → other skill dest):

• alice-emacs-mods → ghostel-imposter-audit — detects comint imposters in daemon buffer-list
• alice-emacs-mods → horsin-bignum-safe — fixes Crack #2 bignum seed overflow in horsin/tick
• alice-emacs-mods → ghostel-multi-spawn-safe — serialized spawn recipe avoids Crack #4 daemon hang
• alice-emacs-mods → narya-pg-clean-reload — workaround for Crack #1 PG macro collision
• alice-emacs-mods → emacs-session-seed-bridge — ties $CLAUDE_SESSION_ID into horsin/seed
• alice-emacs-mods → causal-asi-hydra — wires asi-agenda onto C-c a A alongside Causal C-o

Incoming references (other skill src → this skill dest):

• plurigrid-asi-ghostel → alice-emacs-mods — host daemon conventions
• bob-emacs-mods → alice-emacs-mods — host-level defaults; operational layer lives in bob

Verified GF(3) triads containing this skill:

• alice-emacs-mods (-1) ⊗ bob-emacs-mods (0) ⊗ plurigrid-asi-ghostel (+1) = 0 ✓

REPL atlas

Part of: repl-commons. Family canonical: emacs.