tuigreet(1)

💖 tuigreet — bestie edition 💖

okay so picture this: it's you, it's your console, it's login time, and instead of some dusty grey prompt you get a whole graphical console greeter for greetd. that's tuigreet, and she is iconic, no cap. this is the tuigreet(1) page from the General Commands Manual, rewritten so you actually wanna read it. let's go 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

tuigreet [OPTIONS]...

that's it. that's the whole vibe. options in, slay out. 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

bestie this is the main character section, so hydrate and settle in. every single flag is here, i'm not skipping a single one, periodt.

• -h, --help — shows you how to use it, then dips. usage and exit, that's the whole moment.
• -v, --version — prints the program version and bounces. quick lil flex. 👑
• -d, --debug [FILE] — turns on debug logging, writing to the FILE path you hand her — or to /tmp/tuigreet.log if you don't specify a file at all. (yes, the FILE is optional, the logs are not. 🫶)
• -c, --cmd CMD — tells her which command to run once authentication succeeds. lowkey important: this can be overridden by manually selecting a session from within tuigreet. so she has opinions, but she's flexible.
• -s, --sessions DIR1[:DIR2]... — where the desktop-files that count as Wayland session definitions live. by default, Wayland sessions get fetched from /usr/share/wayland-sessions. colon-separated dirs, she can handle multiple. 🌸
• --session-wrapper 'CMD [ARGS]...' — a wrapper command to execute instead of the session, for non-X11 sessions. heads up: this command receives the session command as its arguments. so like, it gets handed the session. iykyk.
• -x, --xsessions DIR1[:DIR2]... — same energy as -s but for X11 session definitions. by default, X11 sessions get fetched from /usr/share/xsessions.
• --xsession-wrapper 'CMD [ARGS]...' — a wrapper command to initialize the X server and launch X11 sessions. by default, startx /usr/bin/env gets prepended to all X11 session commands. automatic glow-up, honestly.
• --no-xsession-wrapper — do not wrap commands for X11 sessions. she's rawdogging it. no wrapper, no problem. 💀
• -w, --width COLS — how many columns the main prompt area should take up on the screen. width is a whole personality trait.
• -i, --issue — prints the content of /etc/issue at the top of the prompt area. classic.

⚠️ bestie listen: this option is mutually exclusive with --issue... okay wait, it's mutually exclusive with --greeting. pick one, you cannot have both, she will not allow it. 🙈

• -g, --greeting GREETING — sets the text displayed at the top of the prompt area. your custom lil welcome message, main character energy fr.

⚠️ same rule as above, flipped: this one is mutually exclusive with --issue. one or the other, no in-between. ✨

• -t, --time — prints the current date and time at the top of the screen. she knows what time it is. always.
• --time-format FORMAT — sets a custom strftime-compliant format string for that current date and time. so you can make the clock look however you want. 💜
• --user-menu — lets you pick a user from a graphical menu instead of typing. so convenient, so cute.
• --user-menu-min-uid — the minimum UID of the users shown in that selection menu.
• --user-menu-max-uid — the maximum UID of the users shown in that selection menu. (min and max, a whole range, she contains multitudes.)
• -r, --remember — remembers the username of the last successfully opened session, so the username field comes pre-filled next run. she remembers you. 🥹
• --remember-session — remembers the last selected session, which effectively overrides whatever --cmd option you gave her on subsequent runs. yes, effectively overriding it. that's the whole point.
• --remember-user-session — remembers the last opened session, per user. ⚠️ requires --remember to work, so don't skip that one.
• --theme SPEC — defines the colors used to draw the UI components. the proper syntax lives in the project's README, so go peek there. this is where the aesthetic happens. 🎀
• --asterisks — adds visual feedback when you type secrets: one asterisk character for every keystroke. by default, no feedback is given at all — silence, nothing, void. 💀
• --asterisks-char CHARS — swaps the default feedback character from an asterisk to a random distribution of the provided characters. chaos, but make it secure. 🌈
• --window-padding COLS — adds spacing between the edge of the screen and the drawing area. breathing room, bestie.
• --container-padding COLS — adds spacing between the border of the main prompt area and its contents.
• --prompt-padding ROWS — adds spacing between the form fields. give those fields some space to exist. 🫶
• --greet-align [left|center|right] — alignment of the greeting text inside the main prompt container. default is 'center', because she's balanced like that.
• --power-shutdown CMD [ARGS]... — customizes the command run when you tell her to shut down the machine. ⚠️ this must be a non-interactive command — sudo cannot prompt for a password here, for example. no prompts, no waiting, just action.
• --power-reboot CMD [ARGS]... — customizes the command run when you tell her to reboot the machine. ⚠️ same rule: must be a non-interactive command (sudo can't prompt for a password, for example).
• --power-no-setsid — does not prefix power commands with setsid, which is normally used to detach it from the current TTY. so without it, the setsid prefix stays; with it, gone. 🦋
• --kb-[command|sessions|power] [1-12] — changes the default F-key keybindings used to access the command, sessions and power menus. pick your menu, pick your number 1–12. custom keys, custom life. 💅

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

maintained by Antoine POPINEAU <antoine@popineau.eu>.

also contributed to by great people at https://github.com/apognu/tuigreet/graphs/contributors — a whole squad, honestly. 🫶

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🧚 DEVELOPMENT 🧚

issue reporting and development discussion should happen at https://github.com/apognu/tuigreet. that's the spot, that's where the magic (and the bug reports) live. 🌸

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• greetd(1) — the parent, the origin story, go read it next bestie.

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and that's the page!! tuigreet(1), from the tuigreet manual, dated 2026-02-07 💖 go forth and greet gorgeously, you've got this. mwah. 🎀✨