hyprland-wiki/pages/IPC/_index.md

Hyprland exposes 2 UNIX Sockets, for controlling / getting info about Hyprland via code / bash utilities.

Hyprland Instance Signature (HIS)

echo $HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE

/tmp/hypr/[HIS]/.socket.sock

Used for hyprctl-like requests. See the Hyprctl page for commands.

basically, write [flag(s)]/command args.

/tmp/hypr/[HIS]/.socket2.sock

Used for events. Hyprland will write to each connected client live events like this:

EVENT>>DATA\n (\n is a linebreak)

e.g.: workspace>>2

Events list

name	description	data
workspace	emitted on workspace change. Is emitted ONLY when a user requests a workspace change, and is not emitted on mouse movements (see activemon)	WORKSPACENAME
focusedmon	emitted on the active monitor being changed.	MONNAME,WORKSPACENAME
activewindow	emitted on the active window being changed.	WINDOWCLASS,WINDOWTITLE
activewindowv2	emitted on the active window being changed.	WINDOWADDRESS
fullscreen	emitted when a fullscreen status of a window changes.	0/1 (exit fullscreen / enter fullscreen)
monitorremoved	emitted when a monitor is removed (disconnected)	MONITORNAME
monitoradded	emitted when a monitor is added (connected)	MONITORNAME
createworkspace	emitted when a workspace is created	WORKSPACENAME
destroyworkspace	emitted when a workspace is destroyed	WORKSPACENAME
moveworkspace	emitted when a workspace is moved to a different monitor	WORKSPACENAME,MONNAME
activelayout	emitted on a layout change of the active keyboard	KEYBOARDNAME,LAYOUTNAME
openwindow	emitted when a window is opened	WINDOWADDRESS,WORKSPACENAME,WINDOWCLASS,WINDOWTITLE
closewindow	emitted when a window is closed	WINDOWADDRESS
movewindow	emitted when a window is moved to a workspace	WINDOWADDRESS,WORKSPACENAME
openlayer	emitted when a layerSurface is mapped	NAMESPACE
closelayer	emitted when a layerSurface is unmapped	NAMESPACE
submap	emitted when a keybind submap changes. Empty means default.	SUBMAPNAME
changefloatingmode	emitted when a window changes its floating mode. FLOATING is either 0 or 1.	WINDOWADDRESS,FLOATING
urgent	emitted when a window requests an urgent state	WINDOWADDRESS
minimize	emitted when a window requests a change to its minimized state. MINIMIZED is either 0 or 1.	WINDOWADDRESS,MINIMIZED
screencopy	emitted when a screencopy state of a client changes. Keep in mind there might be multiple separate clients. State is 0/1, owner is 0 - monitor share, 1 - window share	STATE,OWNER

{{< hint type=warning >}} A fullscreen event is not guaranteed to fire on/off once in succession. A window might do for example 3 requests to be fullscreen'd, which would result in 3 fullscreen events. {{< /hint >}}

How to use socket2 with bash

example script using socket2 events with bash and socat:

#!/bin/sh

handle() {
  case $1 in
    monitoradded*) do_something ;;
    focusedmon*) do_something_else ;;
  esac
}

socat -U - UNIX-CONNECT:/tmp/hypr/$HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE/.socket2.sock | while read -r line; do handle "$line"; done