All of the possible actions that we can invoke using keybindings.dict are here: developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/… - and this is linked on that ss64 site. I will update here with my progress when I get through all of the reading I have to do!

Thanks - the Cocoa Text System. It looks like there are a bunch of pre-baked commands, but not the one I am looking for. developers.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/… - another relevant link: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/16135/… and ss64.com/osx/syntax-keybindings.html - which has a TON of stuff

@Allan Thanks for the help, but I think you misunderstood me. I know how to do it in vim. I even know how to do it in terminal (although now I use zsh with vim-like keybindings). I do NOT know how to do the movements I want in a regular text box, like, say, in slack or in a comment textbox in firefox while on stackexchange.

This should probably be moved to chat... but I'm trying to use what I've learned to traverse the UI element tree & meeting no success. Syntax error: Can’t get "exit to Desktop 3" of UI element 1 of UI element "Spaces Bar" of UI element 1 of group 1. Access not allowed. ... I'm pretty sure I'm in the right place. I'm one level deeper in the Accessibility Inspector, and I've tried a bunch of different things. Quite possible I just haven't tried the right thing yet, also possible that the "Access not allowed" statement means what it says. Will keep trying before asking for more help.

Now I want to delete a space. I have read through n8henrie.com/2013/03/a-strategy-for-ui-scripting-in-applescr‌​ipt and apple.stackexchange.com/questions/40436/… . I feel confident that I can use this in combination with what you have taught me to find out how to click the "X" button for the space that I'm currently in. I'll add to this answer when I figure out how to do that. I will need to use the description instead of the group number to accomplish this. Can't figure out how to get proper names yet.

Thanks for digging into this. I didn't think to look at the NS (NeXTSTEP) functions that Apple exposes to us. I don't have the proper mental model of what's going on, but I'm real curious... I see that there's a "Create NSWorkspace configuration" object - developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/… - but I don't see how it can be used! NSWorkspace is not 1:1 with spaces, but I can't see anything that is. (Yet)