niri

Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor config — input, layout, window rules, per-display profiles, keybindings, and launcher scripts.

niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Here it runs with the Noctalia shell (bar, panels, OSD, notifications), vicinae as the launcher, and niri-dynamic-workspaces for named workspaces.

Files

exact_config.d is a chezmoi exact directory. On apply, chezmoi deletes any file in ~/.config/niri/config.d/ that the repo does not manage, so stale fragments cannot linger. None of these files are templates.

Installation

• niri and xdg-user-dirs from pacman, noctalia-shell from the AUR. Declared under packages.arch.desktop in .chezmoidata/packages.yaml and installed by run_onchange_before_10-packages.sh.tmpl for desktop/laptop roles. See chezmoi scripts.
• .chezmoiscripts/run_once_after_30-user-services.sh.tmpl runs once on Linux. If ~/.config/systemd/user/nirinit.service exists, it runs systemctl --user daemon-reload and systemctl --user enable nirinit.service. The script’s comment says other personal units (brain-lens, omp-loop, rclone, hermes, voxtype) ship as files only and are enabled by hand. The repo does not currently contain dot_config/systemd, so the unit must come from elsewhere for the enable step to run.
• Tools the config calls but does not install: vicinae, cliphist/wl-paste, polkit-gnome, kbuildsycoca6, voxtype, niri-dynamic-workspaces, dot-screenshot, niri-smart-close, niri-smart-move, and the capitaine-cursors-light cursor theme. niri-smart-close, niri-smart-move, and dot-screenshot are called by path or name but are not in this repo.

Load order

config.kdl sets two top-level options and then includes the fragments in numeric order:

hotkey-overlay {
    skip-at-startup
}

screenshot-path "~/Pictures/Screenshots/Screenshot from %Y-%m-%d %H-%M-%S.png"

include "config.d/10-input-and-cursor.kdl"
// … 20 through 90 …
include "config.d/90-outputs.kdl"

After the includes, config.kdl repeats inline input, layout, gestures, cursor, overview, window-rule, animations, and environment blocks, a leftover of the iNiR (illogical-impulse) base it started from. It then sets debug { honor-xdg-activation-with-invalid-serial }, which lets Noctalia v5 activate windows from notification actions. It includes ./noctalia.kdl and ends with prefer-no-csd. niri merges repeated sections and later values win, so the inline blocks override the fragments where they differ. Those differences are listed in each section below.

Input and cursor

config.d/10-input-and-cursor.kdl:

The inline input block in config.kdl repeats the same keyboard and touchpad values without accel-speed or the tablet/touch mappings, so those two settings from the fragment still apply.

Layout and overview

config.d/20-layout-and-overview.kdl:

The gestures { hot-corners { } } block is empty in the fragment. The inline block in config.kdl sets hot-corners { off }, so hot corners are disabled.

Colors (Noctalia)

noctalia.kdl is included last, so its colors override the fragment’s placeholder colors (#7fc8ff ring, #ffc87f border):

Shadow color is #1e1c2170 and the insert hint is #a398b380. The palette follows the Noctalia shell’s color scheme, not cyberdream.

Window rules

config.d/30-window-rules.kdl:

Global blur settings: passes 4, offset 5.0, noise 0.02, saturation 2.0. The inline window-rule in config.kdl sets geometry-corner-radius 8 after the fragment, so the effective radius is 8.

Environment

config.d/40-environment.kdl (repeated verbatim inline in config.kdl):

Startup

config.d/50-startup.kdl spawns at login:

Animations

config.d/60-animations.kdl makes every animation a critically damped spring (damping-ratio=1.0, epsilon=0.0001) with high stiffness: workspace-switch 4000, window-open 5000, window-close 6000, horizontal-view-movement 4500, window-movement 5000, window-resize 5500, config-notification-open-close 5000, screenshot-ui-open 5000.

The inline animations block in config.kdl comes later and overrides these with softer springs tuned to match quickshell’s Material motion:

Keybindings

All bindings from config.d/70-binds.kdl. Mod is Super (Alt when niri runs nested). Super+… and Mod+… are the same modifier. The table groups bindings by the file’s comment headers.

System and launcher

Screenshots

Applications

Dynamic workspaces

Focus and movement

Monitors

Layout and sizing

Hardware keys

All of these work while the screen is locked (allow-when-locked=true) and go through Noctalia IPC, so the Noctalia OSD shows feedback. The commented v4: lines in the file are the old qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call … forms.

Layer rules

config.d/80-layer-rules.kdl:

• Noctalia surfaces matching ^noctalia-(bar-…|notification|dock|panel|attached-panel|osd)$ get background-effect { xray false }, so their blur samples what is actually behind them. Noctalia publishes blur regions itself when ext-background-effects is available.
• ^noctalia-wallpaper is placed within the backdrop (place-within-backdrop true). The wallpaper stays still while workspaces move and shows in the overview.
• layout { background-color "transparent" } and overview workspace-shadow { off } are restated here so the backdrop is always visible.

Outputs and display profiles

config.d/90-outputs.kdl turns DP-5 off and includes the per-display profiles. An older Apple Display block and a DP-4 off block remain as comments.

include "91-internal-display.kdl"
// include "92-ultrawide.kdl"
include "93-apple-display.kdl"
include "94-portable-hdmi.kdl"
// include "95-portable-usbc.kdl"

The Apple Studio Display also exposes a phantom connector (DP-4/5/6, varies per boot) whose only mode is 640×480. A commented spawn-at-startup for scripts/kill-phantom-display.fish handles it by mode signature, since connector name and EDID both shift.

To switch a profile, uncomment or comment its include line in 90-outputs.kdl. niri reloads config on save.

Scripts

Deployed to ~/.config/niri/scripts/. 70-binds.kdl binds none of them, so they run by hand or from other tools.

Launchers

niri-launch

~/.local/bin/niri-launch <app> focuses an app’s window, cycles through its windows on repeated presses (sorted by window id), or launches it when none is open.

Wrappers

Each wrapper resolves its own symlink and execs niri-launch from the same directory:

cp-appid

cp-appid lists every .desktop file (via fd) in /usr/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications, ~/.local/share/applications, the system and user Flatpak export dirs, and /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications. It shows each entry’s Name= and ID in fzf, then copies the chosen ID to the clipboard with wl-copy. Use it to find app-ids for window rules and niri-launch.

Related

• Hyprland: the Omarchy setup with the same key layout.
• kitty: kitty-goliath, kitty-herdr, and kitty-tmux classes referenced by the rules.