sway(1)

📦
version 1.12_rc3 · 12 versions
, in alpine 3.24

💖 sway(1) — the manual page, but make it a group chat 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to sway(1) from the General Commands Manual — this is the one, the icon, the reason you're here. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

sway — an i3-compatible Wayland compositor. that's it. that's the tweet. 👑

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sway [options...] [command]

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

okay these are the flags, and yes you're gonna want to know all of them, no skipping 💅

  • -h, --help — shows you the help message and then dips. bye bestie 👋
  • -c, --config <config> — tells sway exactly which config file to use. config is the path, you pick it 💖
  • -C, --validate — checks if your config file is even valid, then exits. it's giving vibe check for your config ngl 🧚
  • -d, --debug — turns on FULL logging, debug info included. every. single. detail. 🔥
  • -v, --version — prints the version number and quits. simple, iconic ⭐
  • -V, --verbose — more verbose logging (not the full debug chaos, just extra chatty) 🌸
  • --get-socketpath — gets the IPC socket path, prints it, then exits. one job, does it perfectly 💀

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so here's the lore. sway was made to fill the need for an i3-like window manager on Wayland. the upstream i3 devs have zero intention of porting i3 to Wayland, and the projects other people proposed? ended up as vaporware 😭 literally nothing.

huge thanks to the i3 folks for making such a great piece of software — so good, in fact, that users would rather write an entirely new window manager from scratch that behaves exactly like i3 than switch to something else. the dedication?? unreal. 🫶

you can run sway directly from a tty, or via a Wayland-compatible login manager. both slay ✨

🦋 CONFIGURATION 🦋

sway goes hunting for a config file in these exact locations, in this exact order:

  1. ~/.sway/config
  2. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sway/config ← this one's the suggested location bestie 👑
  3. ~/.i3/config
  4. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3/config
  5. /etc/sway/config
  6. /etc/i3/config

if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset, it defaults to ~/.config. noted 💅

⚠️ an error is raised when no config file is found. no config, no vibes, it just yells at you.

the recommended default configuration is usually installed to /etc/sway/config — and you're encouraged to copy that over to ~/.config/sway/config and edit it from there. make it yours, bestie 🎀

for the lowdown on the config file format, see sway(5). iykyk 📖

💀 IPC COMMANDS 💀

okay so swaymsg(1) is generally the preferred way, but you may run sway command to send a command to the running instance of sway. and plot twist — you can also issue commands with i3-msg(1) or even with i3(1). inclusive king behavior honestly 🌈

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

the env vars that have an effect on sway 🍓

  • SWAYSOCK — specifies the path to the sway IPC socket.
  • XKB_DEFAULT_RULES, XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL, XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT, XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT, XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS — configures the xkb keyboard settings. see xkeyboard-config(7). but ngl, the preferred way to configure your keyboard is via the configuration file, see sway-input(5) 💖

the env vars that sway sets for you 🌸

  • DISPLAY — if compiled with Xwayland support and Xwayland isn't disabled by the config, this gets set to the name of the X display used for Xwayland.
  • I3SOCK — for compatibility with i3, specifies the path to the sway IPC socket.
  • SWAYSOCK — specifies the path to the sway IPC socket. yes it's in both lists, it's that girl 💅
  • WAYLAND_DISPLAY — specifies the name of the Wayland display that sway is running on.
  • XCURSOR_SIZE — specifies the configured cursor size.
  • XCURSOR_THEME — specifies the configured cursor theme. cute cursor rights!! 🎀

👑 AUTHORS 👑

maintained by Simon Ser <contact@emersion.fr>, who is assisted by other open source contributors. absolute main character energy, but make it collaborative 🫶

for more information about sway development, see <https://github.com/swaywm/sway>. go lurk, it's fine 🌐

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

sway(5) swaymsg(1) sway-input(5) sway-output(5) sway-bar(5) sway-ipc(7)

the whole friend group fr fr 💜

and that's the page!! this version is dated 2026-04-26 and it's sway(1) — the one and only. go forth and tile your windows, bestie 🧚✨🌸

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