Keyboard Event Codes

Name: Keyboard Event Codes
Creator: staticdata.dev
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

The complete set of KeyboardEvent.code values defined by the W3C UI Events specification. Each entry records the code string (e.g. KeyA, Digit1, ShiftLeft) that identifies the physical key regardless of keyboard layout, the typical key label or printed value, the physical location of the key (standard, left, right, or numpad), and a logical category grouping (alphanumeric, function, control, navigation, numpad, or modifier). The dataset has 184 codes: all 172 values in the W3C code registry (as of October 2026) plus F13–F24, including alphanumeric keys, function keys, modifier keys, navigation cluster, numpad, media, browser and legacy editing keys, and miscellaneous control keys.

v1.0.0 MIT 184 records Updated 2026-10-05 stable Source: W3C UI Events — KeyboardEvent code values

Quick fetch

Stable URL. CORS-enabled. No auth.

bash

curl https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.json

Or use as a typed import: import { keyboardEventCodes } from "https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.ts"

Formats

JSON 19.2 KB

/v1/keyboard-event-codes.json

Open

min: 13.8 KB · /v1/keyboard-event-codes.min.json
CSV 6.0 KB

/v1/keyboard-event-codes.csv

Open
TypeScript 19.5 KB

/v1/keyboard-event-codes.ts

export const keyboardEventCodes

type KeyboardCode = (typeof keyboardEventCodes)[number]

Open

Schema

Each record in the dataset has the following shape.

Schema
Field	Type	Description	Example
code	string	The KeyboardEvent.code string identifying the physical key	KeyA
key	string	Typical printed value or label produced by the key in unmodified state	a
location	string	Physical location on keyboard: standard, left, right, or numpad	standard
category	string	Logical grouping: alphanumeric, function, control, navigation, numpad, or modifier	alphanumeric

Preview

First 10 records.

Data preview
code	key	location	category
Abort	Abort	standard	control
Again	Again	standard	control
AltLeft	Alt	left	modifier
AltRight	Alt	right	modifier
ArrowDown	ArrowDown	standard	navigation
ArrowLeft	ArrowLeft	standard	navigation
ArrowRight	ArrowRight	standard	navigation
ArrowUp	ArrowUp	standard	navigation
AudioVolumeDown	AudioVolumeDown	standard	control
AudioVolumeMute	AudioVolumeMute	standard	control

Showing 10 of 184. View full data: JSON · CSV

Fetch examples

Drop-in snippets in five languages.

curl

curl -sSL https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.json | jq '.[0]'

JavaScript

import type { KeyboardCode } from "https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.ts";

const res = await fetch("https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.min.json");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Fetch failed: ${res.status}`);
const keyboardEventCodes: KeyboardCode[] = await res.json();
console.log(keyboardEventCodes[0]);

Python

import urllib.request, json

with urllib.request.urlopen("https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.min.json") as r:
    keyboardEventCodes = json.load(r)

print(keyboardEventCodes[0])

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	resp, err := http.Get("https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.min.json")
	if err != nil { panic(err) }
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var data []map[string]any
	if err := json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&data); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(data[0])
}

Rust

use serde_json::Value;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let body = ureq::get("https://staticdata.dev/v1/keyboard-event-codes.min.json").call()?.into_string()?;
    let data: Vec<Value> = serde_json::from_str(&body)?;
    println!("{:?}", data.first());
    Ok(())
}

Sources and methodology

The data is curated from the W3C UI Events KeyboardEvent code values specification. The KeyboardEvent.code property returns a string that identifies the physical key pressed on a keyboard, independent of the active keyboard layout or locale. This makes it ideal for game controls, keyboard shortcuts, and any scenario where physical key position matters more than the character produced.

Keys are grouped into six categories: alphanumeric covers the main letter, digit, and punctuation keys on the alphanumeric block; function covers the F1–F24 function row; modifier covers keys like Shift, Control, Alt, Meta, CapsLock, and Fn that modify the effect of other keys; control covers editing and system keys such as Enter, Backspace, Escape, Delete, Insert, Tab, and media/power keys; navigation covers the arrow keys and the navigation cluster (Home, End, PageUp, PageDown); and numpad covers all keys on the numeric keypad including NumLock.

The location field distinguishes keys that appear in multiple physical positions: left and right for paired modifier keys (e.g. ShiftLeft vs ShiftRight), numpad for numpad keys, and standard for all other keys. The key field reflects the value typically reported by KeyboardEvent.key when the key is pressed without modifiers and with a US English layout — for letter keys this is the lowercase character, for symbol keys it is the unshifted character, and for special keys it is the standard key value string defined by the W3C (e.g. LaunchApp1 → LaunchApplication1, MediaSelect → LaunchMediaPlayer). The legacy Abort, Resume and Suspend keys have no defined key value; their printed label is given. F13–F24 are not listed in the code registry tables but are emitted by browsers for extended function rows.

Versioning

URLs under /v1/ are stable: field names and types will not change in a way that breaks consumers. Values can be corrected or records added when the upstream source changes; schema-incompatible updates ship under a new version path. See the keyboard-event-codes changelog for this dataset's history.

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