1I3-MSG(1) i3 Manual I3-MSG(1)
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6 i3-msg - send messages to i3 window manager
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9 i3-msg [-q] [-v] [-h] [-s socket] [-t type] [-r] [message]
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12 -q, --quiet
13 Only send ipc message and suppress the output of the response.
14 -v, --version
16 Display version number and exit.
17 -h, --help
19 Display a short help-message and exit.
20 -s, --socket sock_path
22 i3-msg will use the environment variable I3SOCK or the socket path
23 given here. If both fail, it will try to get the socket information
24 from the root window and then try /tmp/i3-ipc.sock before exiting
25 with an error.
26 -t type
28 Send ipc message, see below. This option defaults to "command".
29 -m, --monitor
31 Instead of exiting right after receiving the first subscribed
32 event, wait indefinitely for all of them. Can only be used with "-t
33 subscribe". See the "subscribe" IPC message type below for details.
34 -r, --raw
36 Display the raw JSON reply instead of pretty-printing errors (for
37 commands) or displaying the top-level config file contents (for
38 GET_CONFIG).
39 message
41 Send ipc message, see below.
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44 command
45 The payload of the message is a command for i3 (like the commands
46 you can bind to keys in the configuration file) and will be
47 executed directly after receiving it.
48 get_workspaces
50 Gets the current workspaces. The reply will be a JSON-encoded list
51 of workspaces.
52 get_outputs
54 Gets the current outputs. The reply will be a JSON-encoded list of
55 outputs (see the reply section of docs/ipc, e.g. at
56 https://i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html#_receiving_replies_from_i3).
57 get_tree
59 Gets the layout tree. i3 uses a tree as data structure which
60 includes every container. The reply will be the JSON-encoded tree.
61 get_marks
63 Gets a list of marks (identifiers for containers to easily jump to
64 them later). The reply will be a JSON-encoded list of window marks.
65 get_bar_config
67 Gets the configuration (as JSON map) of the workspace bar with the
68 given ID. If no ID is provided, an array with all configured bar
69 IDs is returned instead.
70 get_binding_modes
72 Gets a list of configured binding modes.
73 get_version
75 Gets the version of i3. The reply will be a JSON-encoded dictionary
76 with the major, minor, patch and human-readable version.
77 get_config
79 Gets the currently loaded i3 configuration.
80 send_tick
82 Sends a tick to all IPC connections which subscribe to tick events.
83 subscribe
85 The payload of the message describes the events to subscribe to.
86 Upon reception, each event will be dumped as a JSON-encoded object.
87 See the -m option for continuous monitoring.
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90 i3-msg is a sample implementation for a client using the unix socket
91 IPC interface to i3.
92 Exit status:
94 0: if OK, 1: if invalid syntax or unable to connect to ipc-socket 2: if
95 i3 returned an error processing your command(s)
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98 # Use 1-px border for current client
99 i3-msg "border 1pixel"
100 # You can leave out the quotes
102 i3-msg border normal
103 # Dump the layout tree
105 i3-msg -t get_tree
106 # Monitor window changes
108 i3-msg -t subscribe -m '[ "window" ]'
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111 I3SOCK
112 If no ipc-socket is specified on the commandline, this variable is used
113 to determine the path, at which the unix domain socket is expected, on
114 which to connect to i3.
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117 i3(1)
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120 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
121i3 4.22 01/02/2023 I3-MSG(1)