A modular Wayland window manager that stays out of your way.

Install · Three ways to work · Wave config · Docs · Changelog

Pick how your windows behave: tiled workspaces, scrolling columns or an endless canvas. Switch between them live without closing a single app. Everything else is yours too: your bar, your launcher, your look, one readable config file that reloads on save.

_{Watch in full quality (mp4)}

Three ways to work

Classic	Scroll	Ocean
Tiles and workspaces. BSP, master/stack or cascade, numbered workspaces per monitor, floating when you want it.	An endless strip of columns. New windows open beside you instead of squeezing the rest. Stack or tab a column, cycle preset widths.	An infinite canvas. Group windows into reefs or drop them anywhere, then pan and zoom. One camera per monitor, or one shared view.

tidectl engine scroll   # every open window comes along

Coming from another window manager?

You use…	Start with	What carries over
Hyprland, Sway, i3	Classic	Dwindle-style tiling, per-monitor workspaces, scratchpads, submaps (mode), window rules, gaps, a JSON IPC socket
niri, PaperWM	Scroll	Scrolling columns, consume/expel, stacked and tabbed columns, preset widths, center-focused column
driftwm, a canvas desktop	Ocean	Pan/zoom camera, bookmarks, free placement, a whole-world minimap

These describe the workflow, not drop-in config compatibility. TideWM's own guide: Spatial model.

What you get

🧩 Built from parts you choose Waybar, Quickshell, eww, rofi, hyprlock, swww: standard Wayland protocols mean your tools just work. TideWM manages windows and leaves the desktop to you.	⚡ Light, and measured About 50 MB for plain tiling and 60–70 MB with every effect on (AMD, PSS). With the defaults, an idle desktop renders nothing. tidectl perf and tidectl doctor show what your setup costs.
🎨 Your look, down to the shader Rounding, gradient borders, shadows, frost and water glass, open/close/move animations, custom GLSL. The water effects are a toggle each, or all off.	🖥️ Real-desktop ready Mixed-scale monitors, hotplug, X11 apps via xwayland-satellite, screenshots, OBS and Discord screen sharing, session lock, tablets and touch.
🔌 Scriptable to the core tidectl drives every action. tidectl subscribe streams window, workspace and focus events, so your bar never polls.	🌊 A little water, if you want it Ripples on open, wave workspace transitions, windows that sway when dragged. Personality, not a requirement.

Real screenshots

Classic	Ocean

Wave your best config!

Wave reads like a settings file and grows into a programming language only if you ask it to. Start with key = value and a few braces. It's as friendly as YAML, with no indentation traps and no quoting rules to memorize.

# ~/.config/tidewm/config.wave (created with working defaults on first launch)
engine = scroll
gaps   = 10

border {
    width = 2
}

@mod = SUPER
bind $mod+Return { spawn:kitty }
bind $mod+Q      { close-window }

Save, and it's live. A typo shows you the file and line on screen while your last good config keeps running.

Underneath, it is Lua. The same file takes loops, functions, typed colors and durations, hardware checks and event handlers, so one config can follow you across every machine:

for i = 1, 9 do                         # nine workspace binds, one loop
    bind $mod+Num$i { workspace:$i }
end

theme {
    primary = #8EDDFF
    deep    = primary.darken(0.35)      # colors are real values
}

if tide.gpu.vendor == "nvidia" then     # per-machine settings, same file
    gaps = 6
end

on "workspace-changed" {                # react to your session
    if tide.workspace == 3 then spawn("kitty --class notes") end
}

Split it with include, format it with wavefmt, ask the running session anything with tidectl eval. → The Wave guide · Every key and action

Install

Note

TideWM is in beta and built by one person. It is a daily driver on Arch and Gentoo (AMD and NVIDIA); other distros should work, and reports are very welcome.

No systemd required. TideWM gets its seat through libseat, so it runs on OpenRC, runit (Void), s6 and friends with seatd or elogind.

Distro	Command
Arch and derivatives	packaging/arch/install.sh
Gentoo	packaging/gentoo/install.sh
NixOS / Nix	nix run github:Fi3w0/TideWM
Anything else	./install.sh after the build dependencies

Then pick TideWM in your display manager. Details: packaging guide.

Tip

Just looking? Run it in a window inside your current desktop. Nothing on your system changes:

git clone https://github.com/Fi3w0/TideWM && cd TideWM
cargo run --locked --release

Build dependencies per distro

# Arch
sudo pacman -S pkg-config wayland systemd-libs libinput libxkbcommon mesa libdrm seatd
# Fedora
sudo dnf install pkgconf-pkg-config wayland-devel systemd-devel libinput-devel libxkbcommon-devel mesa-libEGL-devel mesa-libgbm-devel libdrm-devel libseat-devel
# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install pkg-config libwayland-dev libudev-dev libinput-dev libxkbcommon-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgbm-dev libdrm-dev libseat-dev
# Gentoo (systemd or OpenRC)
sudo emerge --ask dev-util/pkgconf dev-libs/wayland dev-libs/libinput x11-libs/libxkbcommon media-libs/mesa x11-libs/libdrm sys-auth/seatd sys-fs/eudev
# Void
sudo xbps-install -S pkg-config wayland-devel eudev-libudev-devel libinput-devel libxkbcommon-devel MesaLib-devel libdrm-devel libseat-devel seatd

Screen sharing (OBS, Discord, browsers) needs --features screencast and clang/libclang at build time.

GL apps slow but TideWM smooth? Your user can't reach /dev/dri/renderD*; add the video group or a uaccess rule.

Default shortcuts

Keys	Action	Keys	Action
Super Enter	Terminal	Super 1…0	Workspace
Super Q	Close window	Super Shift 1…0	Move to workspace
Super HJKL	Focus	Super O	Overview
Super Shift HJKL	Swap window	Super Tab	Cycle focus
Super V	Float	Super -	Scratchpad
Super F	Fullscreen	Super Shift Q	Quit TideWM

Every bind lives in your keybinds.wave; nothing is hidden or hardcoded.

Join in

Like where TideWM is heading? ⭐ Give it a star
_{It takes one click and helps a one-person project reach people who would enjoy it.}

Bug reports from new hardware are the most useful thing you can send right now. I build TideWM with help from AI coding agents and check every change on real hardware before trusting it.

Discord · Open an issue · Contribute · What's verified where

License

• TideWM code, including its bundled Wave configuration engine: GPL-3.0-or-later, see LICENSE.
• TideWM icon (share/icons/tidewm.png): Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. The faithful 4k logo stays CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and is not packaged; see the logo notice.
• Standalone Scorium: a separate project with its own custom source-available license, labelled PolyForm Strict 1.0.0. Its restrictions apply to that project; TideWM's bundled Wave code stays GPL.
• Bundled Adwaita Sans font: SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Copyright (C) 2026 Fi3w0 and contributors. See LICENSING.md for scope, attribution and packaging details.

_{Built on Smithay. Inspired by and borrows implementation patterns from niri, driftwm, Hyprland, and sway.}