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 4.23                           05/01/2024                         I3-MSG(1)