NAME

       herbstclient - sends commands to a running herbstluftwm instance via X

SYNOPSIS

       herbstclient [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS ...]

       herbstclient [OPTIONS] [--wait|--idle] [FILTER ...]

DESCRIPTION

       Sends a COMMAND with its (optional) arguments ARGS to a running herbstluftwm(1) instance via Xlib. If
       COMMAND has an output, it is printed by herbstclient. If output does not end with a newline, then a
       newline is added to improve readability.

       See herbstluftwm(1) for a list of available COMMANDs and their ARGS.

       If --wait or --idle is passed, then it waits for hooks from herbstluftwm. The hook is printed, if it
       matches the optional FILTER. FILTERs are regular expressions. For a list of available hooks see
       herbstluftwm(1).

OPTIONS

       -n, --no-newline
           Do not print a newline if output does not end with a newline.

       -0, --print0
           Use the null character as delimiter between the output of hooks.

       -l, --last-arg
           When using -i or -w, only print the last argument of the hook.

       -i, --idle
           Wait for hooks instead of executing commands.

       -w, --wait
           Same as --idle but exit after first --count hooks.

       -c, --count COUNT
           Let --wait exit after COUNT hooks were received and printed. The default COUNT is 1.

       -q, --quiet
           Do not print error messages if herbstclient cannot connect to the running herbstluftwm instance.

       -v, --version
           Print the herbstclient version. To get the herbstluftwm version, use herbstclient version.

       -h, --help
           Print the herbstclient usage with its command line options.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       DISPLAY
           Specifies the DISPLAY to use, i.e. where herbstluftwm(1) is running.

EXIT STATUS

       Returns the exit status of the COMMAND execution in herbstluftwm(1) server.

       0
           Success.

       other
           Failure. See herbstluftwm(1) for a list of error codes.

BUGS

       See the herbstluftwm Github issues: https://github.com/herbstluftwm/herbstluftwm/issues

COMMUNITY

       Feel free to join the IRC channel #herbstluftwm on irc.libera.chat.

AUTHOR

       herbstclient was written by Thorsten Wißmann. All contributors are listed in the herbstluftwm
       distribution AUTHORS file.

RESOURCES

       Homepage: http://herbstluftwm.org

       Github page: http://github.com/herbstluftwm/herbstluftwm

       Patch submission and bug reporting:

           hlwm@lists.herbstluftwm.org

COPYING

       Copyright 2011-2020 Thorsten Wißmann. All rights reserved.

       This software is licensed under the "Simplified BSD License". See LICENSE for details.

  herbstluftwm 0.9.5                               2025-11-16                                    HERBSTCLIENT(1)