ALACRITTY-MSG(1) General Commands Manual ALACRITTY-MSG(1)

alacritty-msg - Send messages to Alacritty.

This command communicates with running Alacritty instances through a socket, making it possible to control Alacritty without directly accessing it.

-s, --socket <SOCKET>

Path for IPC socket communication.

create-window

Create a new window in the same Alacritty process.

FLAGS

--hold
Remain open after child process exits.

OPTIONS

--working-directory <WORKING_DIRECTORY>
Start the shell in the specified working directory.

-T, --title <TITLE>

Defines the window title.

Default: Alacritty

--class <GENERAL> | <GENERAL>,<INSTANCE>

Defines window class/app_id on X11/Wayland.

Default: Alacritty,Alacritty

-o, --option <OPTION>...

Override configuration file options.

Example: alacritty msg create-window -o 'cursor.style="Beam"'

-e, --command <COMMAND>...

Command and args to execute (must be last argument).

config

Update the Alacritty configuration.

ARGS

<CONFIG_OPTIONS>...
Configuration file options.

Example: alacritty msg config 'cursor.style="Beam"'

FLAGS

-r, --reset
Clear all runtime configuration changes.

OPTIONS

-w, --window-id <WINDOW_ID>
Window ID for the new config.

Use -1 to apply this change to all windows.

Default: $ALACRITTY_WINDOW_ID

get-config

Read runtime Alacritty configuration.

OPTIONS

-w, --window-id <WINDOW_ID>
Window ID for the config request.

Use -1 to get the global config.

Default: $ALACRITTY_WINDOW_ID

alacritty(1), alacritty(5), alacritty-bindings(5)

Found a bug? Please report it at https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/issues.

  • Christian Duerr <contact@christianduerr.com>
  • Kirill Chibisov <contact@kchibisov.com>
2025-10-20