kitten-@-set-background-image(1)

🎀 Name 🎀

okay bestie, meet kitten-@-set-background-image(1) from the kitten Manual 💅 this is the remote-control command for setting the background image, and yes it ate.

✨ Usage ✨

kitten @ set-background-image PATH_TO_IMAGE_OR_INDEX

that’s the summoning spell 🪄

🦋 Description 🦋

so you wanna set the background image for the specified OS windows? iconic. you gotta give it the path to an image that’ll be used as the background. if you pass the special value none, any existing image gets removed. supported image formats are: PNG, JPEG, WEBP, GIF, BMP, TIFF 🖼️

you can also drop an index to change the background image to one of the pre-configured set of background images. the index is either a number, or a number preceded by the plus or minus sign that acts as an increment. if the index falls outside the range of configured images, the first configured image is used. for example: set-background -- -1 or set-background 3 ✨

💖 Options 💖

• --all, -a ([=no]) — by default, the background image is only changed for the currently active OS window. this option makes the image change in all windows. slay across every window 🪟✨
• --configured, -c ([=no]) — change the configured background image that’s used for new OS windows. heads up: an index with this option is not supported 🚫. specifying none will erase all configured background images.
• --layout ([=configured]) — how the image should be displayed. a value of configured will use the configured value. Choices: configured, centered, clamped, cscaled, mirror-tiled, scaled, tiled 🎨
• --no-response ([=no]) — don’t wait for a response from kitty. this means that even if setting the background image failed, the command will exit with a success code. very “ignore the red flags” of it all 💀
• --match, -m — the window to match. match specifications are of the form: field:query. where field can be one of: id, title, pid, cwd, cmdline, num, env, var, state, neighbor, session and recent. query is the expression to match. expressions can be either a number or a regular expression, and can be combined using Boolean operators.

the special value all matches all windows.

for numeric fields: id, pid, num and recent, the expression is interpreted as a number, not a regular expression. negative values for id match from the highest id number down, in particular, -1 is the most recently created window.

the field num refers to the window position in the current tab, starting from zero and counting clockwise (this is the same as the order in which the windows are reported by the kitten @ ls command).

the window id of the current window is available as the KITTY_WINDOW_ID environment variable.

the field recent refers to recently active windows in the currently active tab, with zero being the currently active window, one being the previously active window and so on.

the field neighbor refers to a neighbor of the active window in the specified direction, which can be: left, right, top or bottom.

the field session matches windows that were created in the specified session. use the expression ^$ to match windows that were not created in a session and . to match the currently active session and ~ to match either the currently active session or the last active session when no session is active.

when using the env field to match on environment variables, you can specify only the environment variable name or a name and value, for example, env:MY_ENV_VAR=2.

similarly, the var field matches on user variables set on the window. you can specify name or name and value as with the env field.

the field state matches on the state of the window. supported states are: active, focused, needs_attention, parent_active, parent_focused, focused_os_window, self, overlay_parent. active windows are the windows that are active in their parent tab. there is only one focused window and it is the window to which keyboard events are delivered. if no window is focused, the last focused window is matched. the value focused_os_window matches all windows in the currently focused OS window. the value self matches the window in which the remote control command is run. the value overlay_parent matches the window that is under the self window, when the self window is an overlay.

note that you can use the kitten @ ls command to get a list of windows 👀

• --help, -h ([=no]) — show help for this command 🫶

🌈 Global options 🌈

• --to — an address for the kitty instance to control. corresponds to the address given to the kitty instance via the --listen-on option or the listen_on setting in kitty.conf. if not specified, the environment variable KITTY_LISTEN_ON is checked. if that’s also not found, messages are sent to the controlling terminal for this process, i.e. they will only work if this process is run within a kitty window.
• --password — a password to use when contacting kitty. this will cause kitty to ask the user for permission to perform the specified action, unless the password has been accepted before or is pre-configured in kitty.conf. to use a blank password specify --use-password as always 🔐
• --password-file ([=rc-pass]) — a file from which to read the password. trailing whitespace is ignored. relative paths are resolved from the kitty configuration directory. use - to read from STDIN. use fd:num to read from the file descriptor num. used if no --password is supplied. defaults to checking for the rc-pass file in the kitty configuration directory.
• --password-env ([=KITTY_RC_PASSWORD]) — the name of an environment variable to read the password from. used if no --password-file is supplied. defaults to checking the environment variable KITTY_RC_PASSWORD 🌸
• --use-password ([=if-available]) — if no password is available, kitty will usually just send the remote control command without a password. this option can be used to force it to always or never use the supplied password. if set to always and no password is provided, the blank password is used. Choices: if-available, always, never 🎀

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xoxo, version 0.49.2, dated Oct 01, 2026, straight from kitten-@-set-background-image(1) 💖🫶