cmdAbl

A command palette for Ableton Live.

Press : while Live is focused to open a keyboard-driven command input with fuzzy filtering, tab completion, and POSIX-style flag arguments. You are invited to add your own extensions as registered commands.

📖 Documentation and guides: https://marvinhauke.github.io/cmdAbl/

• How it works
• Installation
• Adding your extension to pakabl
• Development
• Scripts
• Project structure

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cmdAbl registers a persistent HTTP server inside the extension host. Karabiner Elements watches for : while Ableton is frontmost and fires a curl request to that server, which opens the command palette modal. Commands are registered in TypeScript and injected into the UI at open time, so the palette always reflects the live command set.

Palette keybindings

Key	Action
Type	Filter commands / flags
Tab	Complete selected item into the input
Enter	Execute selected command
↑ / ↓	Navigate the list
Esc	Close without executing

Command syntax

Commands follow a POSIX-style flag pattern:

commandName [--flag]

Typing a command name followed by a space switches the dropdown into flag-completion mode.

Built-in commands

Command	Description
help	List the available commands
cmdabl --help	Show the usage of cmdabl (documentation: man cmdabl)
cmdabl --setup	Install the keyboard trigger rule and show a result dialog
pakabl list	Browse and install community extensions — see Install more extensions with pakabl under Installation

Default modules

cmdAbl ships with a few small built-in modules (src/modules/) that double as examples for your own:

Module	Capability
goto	goto <path> selects a track or device (via the Remote Script bridge); tracks/devices are also listed in the palette
find	find <pattern> [-t|-d] — every track/device whose path contains the pattern; next / prev step through the matches
mute	mute <track>… toggles mute per track; unmute <track>… always unmutes
solo	solo <track>… toggles solo per track; unsolo <track>… always unsolos
arm	arm <track>… toggles record arm per track; unarm <track>… always disarms; return, main and group tracks cannot be armed and are reported as failed
history	Remembers your last 20 invocations and re-offers them as rerunnable entries
man	man <topic> opens a manual in the browser: man ableton (Live reference manual), man cmdabl (this documentation). man ableton <words> searches the Live 12 manual through Ecosia, e.g. man ableton warp modes
pakabl	Install/update/uninstall community extensions — see Install more extensions with pakabl

Addressing tracks and devices

Commands take paths such as /Drums/Kick. A path may be partial (kick), and names with spaces need no quotes for a single target (goto /Opal Lead). Same-named siblings are told apart by an ordinal: /Drums/Kick, /Drums/Kick#2.

When a path matches more than one object, cmdAbl shows a pick list instead of guessing: type to filter (Space types a space), ↑/↓ to move, Enter to choose, Esc to cancel. Commands that take several tracks (mute, solo, arm, …) let you mark several with Tab, or with Space once you are in the list (the first ↑/↓ only enters it, so ↓ Space marks the first row; typing a character returns to the filter). A line above the filter shows the command Enter will run. That resolved command is what lands in the history, so re-running it never asks again.

Live objects

The palette also fuzzy-searches the current Set. Type part of a track name and hit enter to select that track. The track list is snapshotted each time the palette opens.

Note: selecting a track requires the companion cmdAbl Remote Script (the Extensions SDK cannot change Live's selection). See Remote Script bridge under Installation. Without it, the palette still opens and runs commands — only track selection is a no-op.

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Prerequisites

Platform	Required
macOS	Ableton Live 12 · Karabiner-Elements
Windows	Ableton Live 12 · AutoHotkey v2

Platform note: cmdAbl has only been tested on macOS so far — the Windows paths and setup flow (%APPDATA%\Ableton\Live Extensions, the AutoHotkey trigger, the Remote Script location) are implemented but unverified on a real Windows machine. If you develop on Windows and want to help, trying the install/setup flow and opening an issue with what you find (or a PR with fixes) would be very welcome.

1. Install the extension

Download the latest .ablx from the Releases page and double-click it — Ableton Live installs and loads the extension automatically.

2. Open the palette

Right-click any clip, track, clip slot, or scene and choose : cmdAbl.

3. Set up the : keyboard shortcut

Run the following command in the palette — it both links the keyboard trigger and copies the companion Remote Script into place for step 4 below:

cmdabl --setup

Make sure Karabiner-Elements is installed first. A feedback dialog confirms whether the rule was linked or shows an error. Then open Karabiner-Elements → Complex Modifications → Add rule and enable "Open cmdAbl command palette with ':' when Ableton Live is focused".

Keyboard layout note: The rule maps Shift+Period (: on QWERTZ/German layouts). If you use a different layout, edit karabiner/cmdabl.json and change "key_code" to match your key — use Karabiner's Event Viewer to find the correct code.

Make sure AutoHotkey v2 is installed first. A feedback dialog confirms the script was copied to your startup folder. Open cmdabl.ahk manually to activate it immediately, or restart Windows to auto-start it.

4. Link the Remote Script (enables track selection)

Selecting a track from the palette needs a small companion Remote Script, because Live's Extensions SDK has no API to change the selection itself — cmdabl --setup (step 3) already copied it into Live's User Library for you:

• macOS: ~/Music/Ableton/User Library/Remote Scripts/cmdAbl
• Windows: ~/Documents/Ableton/User Library/Remote Scripts/cmdAbl

Copying the files isn't enough on its own — Live also needs to be told to load and connect to the script, and that's a one-time manual link with no API to automate it:

1. Restart Live so it picks up the new Remote Script (a copy alone doesn't load it).
2. Open Settings → Link, Tempo & MIDI → MIDI, and under Control Surface pick cmdAbl (leave Input/Output set to None). This is the actual "linking" step — it tells Live which Control Surface script to run and connect to the palette's bridge.

Live's log will show cmdAbl bridge listening on 127.0.0.1:27185 once the link is active. Without it, the palette still opens and runs commands — only track selection is a no-op.

5. Install more extensions with pakabl

cmdAbl bundles pakabl, a small package manager for a curated list of community extensions. Run pakabl update once to fetch the index, then browse and manage extensions entirely from the palette:

Command	What it does
pakabl list	Browse the curated list in a UI — Install / Update / Uninstall, or jump to each extension's repo, all with one click
pakabl install <id>	Download and install one extension by id (e.g. federico-pepe.snake)
pakabl update	Refresh the cached curated index
pakabl upgrade <id>@<version>	Re-install a specific version
pakabl uninstall <id>	Remove an installed extension

As with any .ablx, restart Live after installing, upgrading, or uninstalling for the change to take effect.

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The list pakabl shows is pakabl/index.json. It is generated and kept up to date automatically from a set of approved GitHub repos, so you don't edit it by hand.

To get your extension listed, open a pull request that adds one line to pakabl/sources.json:

{ "repo": "<owner>/<repo>" }

Requirements: the repo publishes a built .ablx (as a GitHub Release asset or a committed file) whose manifest.json has name, author, version and a minimumApiVersion starting with 1.. The extension id shown in pakabl list is <author-slug>.<name-slug> from that manifest (author "Federico Pepe" + name "Track Creator" → federico-pepe.track-creator). New versions you publish are picked up automatically.

Tagging your repo with the GitHub topic ableton-extension also makes it show up as a candidate for review. Details of the process: pakabl index guide.

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1. Install dependencies

npm install

2. Run the extension in dev mode

npm start

This type-checks, bundles, and loads the extension into Ableton's Extension Host with live reload.

3. Add commands

All commands are registered on the CommandRegistry instance in src/extension.ts:

registry.register("mycommand", "description shown in the palette", (flags) => {
  // flags is string[] of everything typed after the command name
});

// with declared flags for tab-completion:
registry.register(
  "mycommand",
  "description",
  [{ name: "--option", description: "what this flag does" }],
  (flags) => {
    if (flags.includes("--option")) {
      /* ... */
    }
  },
);

Extensions must export an activate(context: ActivationContext) function.

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npm start          # type-check, build (dev), and run in Live's Extension Host
npm test           # unit tests for the command platform (tokenizer, parser, validator)
npm run package    # production build + create a .ablx archive (includes karabiner/ and windows/)

Maintainers: how a release is cut, how the pakabl list is refreshed, and what CI does are described in the guides.

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src/
  extension.ts       main entry point — registers commands, starts HTTP server
  commandRegistry.ts typed command registry with flag support
  httpTrigger.ts     localhost HTTP server for external triggers (Karabiner, AHK, etc.)
  setup.ts           platform-specific keyboard trigger setup (macOS + Windows)
  modules/           built-in commands (goto, mute, solo, history, pakabl)
  ableton/           object tree and Remote Script bridge
remote-script/       companion Remote Script (track/device selection)
pakabl/              extension list: sources.json (approved repos), generated index.json
scripts/             pakabl-crawl.ts — regenerates the pakabl list
docs/                guides/ (maintainer how-tos), feature-plans/, sdk-tree.md
ui/
  interface.html     command palette (self-contained HTML/CSS/JS, inlined at build time)
karabiner/
  cmdabl.json        Karabiner Elements complex modification (macOS)
windows/
  cmdabl.ahk         AutoHotkey v2 script (Windows)
assets/
  images/            screenshots and videos for this README