A next-generation hotkey daemon for Wayland/X11 written in Rust.

SWHKD

Simple Wayland HotKey Daemon

swhkd is a display protocol-independent hotkey daemon made in Rust. swhkd uses an easy-to-use configuration system inspired by sxhkd, so you can easily add or remove hotkeys.

It also attempts to be a drop-in replacement for sxhkd, meaning your sxhkd config file is also compatible with swhkd.

Because swhkd can be used anywhere, the same swhkd config can be used across Xorg or Wayland desktops, and you can even use swhkd in a TTY.

Installation and Building

Installation and building instructions can be found here.

Running

swhks &
swhkd

Runtime signals

After opening swhkd, you can control the program through signals:

• sudo pkill -USR1 swhkd — Pause key checking
• sudo pkill -USR2 swhkd — Resume key checking
• sudo pkill -HUP swhkd — Reload config file

Configuration

swhkd closely follows sxhkd syntax, so most existing sxhkd configs should be functional with swhkd. More information about the sxhkd syntax can be found in the official man pages from the arch wiki.

The default configuration file is in ~/.config/swhkd/swhkdrc with a fallback to etc/swhkd/swhkdrc.

If you use Vim, you can get swhkd config syntax highlighting with the swhkd-vim plugin. Install it in vim-plug with Plug 'waycrate/swhkd-vim'.

All supported key and modifier names are listed in man 5 swhkd-keys.

Environment Variables

The environment variables are now sourced using the SWHKS binary, running in the background which are then supplemented to the command that is to be run, thus emulating the environment variables in the default shell.

The commands are executed via SHELL -c 'command', hence the environment is sourced from the default shell. If the user wants to use a different set of environment variables, they can set the environment variables in the default shell or export the environment variables within a logged in instance of their shell before running the SWHKS binary.

Autostart

To autostart swhkd you can do one of two things

1. Add the commands from the "Running" section to your window managers configuration file.
2. Enable the service file for your respective init system. Currently, only systemd and OpenRC service files exist and more will be added soon including Runit.

Security

We use a server-client model to keep you safe. The daemon (swhkd — privileged process) is responsible for listening to key events and running shell commands. The server (swhks — non-privileged process) is responsible for keeping a track of the environment variables and sending them to the daemon. The daemon uses these environment variables while running the shell commands. The daemon only runs shell commands that have been parsed from the config file and there is no way to run arbitrary shell commands. The server is responsible for only sending the environment variables to the daemon and nothing else. This separation of responsibilities ensures security.

So yes, you're safe!

Support

1. https://matrix.to/#/#waycrate-tools:matrix.org
2. https://discord.gg/KKZRDYrRYW

Contributors

Supporters:

1. @CluelessTechnologist