Regression: :kbd: in Sphinx 8.2

[brechtm]

Describe the bug

For this reStructuredText:

:kbd:`Control-x`

Sphinx < 8.2 produces these doctree elements (pseudoXML):

<literal classes="kbd">
    Control-x

Since Sphinx 8.2, the following is produced:

<literal classes="kbd">
    Control
-
<literal classes="kbd">
    x

The result is that the hyphen cannot be styled properly, as it is not indicated to be related to the keyboard shortcut. Perhaps the entire shortcut could be wrapped in an inline block with a particular class?

How to Reproduce

N/A

Environment Information

Platform:              darwin; (macOS-15.6.1-arm64-arm-64bit-Mach-O)
Python version:        3.13.7 (main, Aug 23 2025, 23:13:28) [Clang 17.0.0 (clang-1700.0.13.5)])
Python implementation: CPython
Sphinx version:        8.2.3
Docutils version:      0.20.1
Jinja2 version:        3.1.4
Pygments version:      2.18.0

Sphinx extensions

Additional context

No response

[brechtm]

Probably introduced in #13227.

[AA-Turner]

Happy to accept a PR @brechtm.

A

[brechtm]

I'm thinking it would be better to add a kbdsep class to the separator. Additionally, a wrapper with e.g. kbdcompound class would also be useful to be able to style the entire shortcut. What do you think, @AA-Turner ?

[brechtm]

PR here: #13877