I3-MSG(1) i3 Manual I3-MSG(1)

NAME

i3-msg - send messages to i3 window manager

SYNOPSIS

i3-msg [-q] [-v] [-h] [-s socket] [-t type] [-r] [message]

OPTIONS

-q, --quiet
Only send ipc message and suppress the output of the response.

-v, --version
Display version number and exit.

-h, --help
Display a short help-message and exit.

-s, --socket sock_path
i3-msg will use the environment variable I3SOCK or the socket
path given here. If both fail, it will try to get the socket
information from the root window and then try /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
before exiting with an error.

-t type
Send ipc message, see below. This option defaults to "command".

-m, --monitor
Instead of exiting right after receiving the first subscribed
event, wait indefinitely for all of them. Can only be used with
"-t subscribe". See the "subscribe" IPC message type below for
details.

-r, --raw
Display the raw JSON reply instead of pretty-printing errors (for
commands) or displaying the top-level config file contents (for
GET_CONFIG).

message
Send ipc message, see below.

IPC MESSAGE TYPES

command
The payload of the message is a command for i3 (like the commands
you can bind to keys in the configuration file) and will be
executed directly after receiving it.

get_workspaces
Gets the current workspaces. The reply will be a JSON-encoded
list of workspaces.

get_outputs
Gets the current outputs. The reply will be a JSON-encoded list
of outputs (see the reply section of docs/ipc, e.g. at
https://i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html#_receiving_replies_from_i3).

get_tree
Gets the layout tree. i3 uses a tree as data structure which
includes every container. The reply will be the JSON-encoded
tree.

get_marks
Gets a list of marks (identifiers for containers to easily jump
to them later). The reply will be a JSON-encoded list of window
marks.

get_bar_config
Gets the configuration (as JSON map) of the workspace bar with
the given ID. If no ID is provided, an array with all configured
bar IDs is returned instead.

get_binding_modes
Gets a list of configured binding modes.

get_version
Gets the version of i3. The reply will be a JSON-encoded
dictionary with the major, minor, patch and human-readable
version.

get_config
Gets the currently loaded i3 configuration.

send_tick
Sends a tick to all IPC connections which subscribe to tick
events.

subscribe
The payload of the message describes the events to subscribe to.
Upon reception, each event will be dumped as a JSON-encoded
object. See the -m option for continuous monitoring.

DESCRIPTION

i3-msg is a sample implementation for a client using the unix socket
IPC interface to i3.

Exit status:
0: if OK, 1: if invalid syntax or unable to connect to ipc-socket 2:
if i3 returned an error processing your command(s)

EXAMPLES

# Use 1-px border for current client
i3-msg "border 1pixel"

# You can leave out the quotes
i3-msg border normal

# Dump the layout tree
i3-msg -t get_tree

# Monitor window changes
i3-msg -t subscribe -m '[ "window" ]'

ENVIRONMENT

I3SOCK
If no ipc-socket is specified on the commandline, this variable is
used to determine the path, at which the unix domain socket is
expected, on which to connect to i3.

SEE ALSO

i3(1)

AUTHOR

Michael Stapelberg and contributors

i3 4.24 11/06/2024 I3-MSG(1)