Tiling Wayland compositor with horizontal scrolling and first-class workspace management.
AxonWM is a tiling Wayland compositor inspired by Hyprland and niri, combining the best of both:
- From Hyprland — numbered and named workspaces, window rules, familiar tiling WM feel
- From niri — horizontal scrolling layout where windows extend beyond the screen edge
Neither Hyprland nor niri does both. AxonWM does.
Windows are arranged in a horizontal row that extends beyond the visible screen area. You scroll left and right to navigate between windows. Multiple windows can share the screen simultaneously — you control their width. This is not traditional tiling where the screen is split; it is a scrollable infinite canvas per workspace.
- Numbered workspaces — unlimited count, accessible directly by number. Switching to an empty workspace is allowed; it only consumes memory when a window is opened there.
- Named workspaces — special workspaces that do not occupy numbered slots. Accessible by name via keybind or launcher. Example:
messengers,monitoring. - Both types coexist independently.
- Horizontal scrolling layout with animations
- Windows resize dynamically; two or more windows can share the visible area
- Floating windows
- Per-workspace scratchpad + global scratchpad (each workspace has its own hidden window pocket, plus a global one shared across all workspaces)
- Window rules (assign applications to specific workspaces, set default sizes, etc.)
- Touchpad gesture support (planned)
- XWayland support for X11 applications (planned, integrated after minimal WM is working — early enough to avoid large rewrites, late enough to not block initial development)
- Multi-monitor support (planned)
AxonWM uses its own configuration language written as part of the project. All visual aspects are configurable:
- Window borders (width, color for active/inactive)
- Rounded corners radius
- Shadows
- Blur
- Focus behavior on scroll
- Animation style and speed
The language syntax is defined during development. During early development, settings are hardcoded.
AxonWM communicates with external programs (status bars, launchers, scripts) via a Unix socket. Protocol details are defined during development.
AxonWM starts with the wlroots renderer and will replace it with a custom renderer to support blur, advanced animations, and other visual effects.
Early development. Not usable yet.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE.