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 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
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
activelayout	emitted on a layout change of the active keyboard	KEYBOARDNAME,LAYOUTNAME

{{< 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

function handle {
  if [[ ${1:0:12} == "monitoradded" ]]; then
    # do_something
  fi
}

socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/tmp/hypr/$(echo $HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE)/.socket2.sock | while read line; do handle $line; done