Niri

niri

Wayland compositor Application

Initial release	2023-11-26
Latest release	26.04; 25 Apr 2026
Status	Active
Operating System	Linux, FreeBSD
Language(s)	Rust, GLSL
License	GNU General Public License v3.0 only
External links
GitHub	niri-wm/niri
Bug tracker	https://github.com/niri-wm/niri/issues
Documentation	Official wiki, niri-flake

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor.

Installation

Simply enable programs.niri:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

programs.niri.enable = true;

Note: Niri can be enabled without installing a custom flake such as niri-flake. niri-flake is only necessary if you would like to use a very recent version of Niri or if you would want to write configurations in the Nix language, although as of 2025 this repository is listed near the top in search engines.

⚠︎

Warning: Without Configuration or Additional Setup, or after a fresh installation, you may be unable to launch apps due to missing expected programs such as Alacritty and fuzzel. Press Super+Shift+E to exit niri and proceed to one of them.

Configuration

The configuration path for niri is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/niri/config.kdl. Therefore Home Manager can be used for configuration:

❄︎ ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix

xdg.configFile."niri/config.kdl".source = ./config.kdl;

If you want to validate your configuration as part of the build process you can use pkgs.runCommand like this:

❄︎ ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix

xdg.configFile."niri/config.kdl".source =
  pkgs.runCommand "niri-config-checked"
    {
      nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgs.niri ];
    }
    ''
      niri validate --config ${./config.kdl}
      cp ${./config.kdl} $out
    '';

You might want to start from the default configuration file described at here.

See the wiki for configuration options for niri.

Greetd

You can start niri with greetd configuration:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

programs.niri.enable = true;

services.greetd = {
  enable = true;
  settings = {
    default_session = {
      command = "${config.programs.niri.package}/bin/niri-session";
      user = "myuser";
    };
  };
};

# NixOS otherwise injects a stripped PATH via Environment= on the niri.service
# unit which shadows the imported user-manager PATH. Disabling the default
# lets niri inherit the full PATH set up by niri-session.
systemd.user.services.niri.enableDefaultPath = false;

Additional Setup

As described in Example systemd Setup (niri wiki), you might want to set up some additional services including Swayidle, Swaylock, Waybar, Polkit and Secret Service as follows to complement the functionality of a regular window manager. Some of the these settings are also required to enable all the features of the default configuration file.

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

security.polkit.enable = true; # polkit
services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable = true; # secret service
security.pam.services.swaylock = {};

programs.waybar.enable = true; # top bar
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ alacritty fuzzel swaylock mako swayidle ];

Or using Home Manager:

❄︎ ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix

programs.alacritty.enable = true; # Super+T in the default setting (terminal)
programs.fuzzel.enable = true; # Super+D in the default setting (app launcher)
programs.swaylock.enable = true; # Super+Alt+L in the default setting (screen locker)
programs.waybar.enable = true; # launch on startup in the default setting (bar)
services.mako.enable = true; # notification daemon
services.swayidle.enable = true; # idle management daemon
services.polkit-gnome.enable = true; # polkit
home.packages = with pkgs; [
  swaybg # wallpaper
];

Troubleshooting

IME not working on Electron apps

There is a general workaround to set NIXOS_OZONE_WL as described in Wayland#Electron_and_Chromium:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

environment.sessionVariables.NIXOS_OZONE_WL = "1";

However, since niri does not support text-input-v1, sometimes enabling text-input-v3 by manually adding --wayland-text-input-version=3 flag is necessary for IME to work:

$ slack --wayland-text-input-version=3

wrapProgram may be used to add the flag automatically:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

environment.systemPackages = [
  (pkgs.symlinkJoin {
    pname = pkgs.vscode.pname;
    paths = [ pkgs.vscode ];
    buildInputs = [ pkgs.makeWrapper ];
    postBuild = "wrapProgram $out/bin/code --add-flags --wayland-text-input-version=3";
  };)
];

XWayland apps not working

There is a optional dependency for niri which is highly recommended to install (you can read this article to learn more about this)

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ 
    xwayland-satellite # xwayland support
];

Or using Home Manager

❄︎ ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix

home.packages = with pkgs; [
  xwayland-satellite # xwayland support
];

After you installed xwayland-satellite niri will integrate it out of the box and all of your XWayland apps will function properly.

File picker not working

If you are using xdg-desktop-portal-gnome, it will attempt to use Nautilus as the file picker, which will fail if Nautilus is not installed.

To work around this problem, you can force usage of the gtk or kde portals for file picker instead:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

xdg.portal.config.niri = {
  "org.freedesktop.impl.portal.FileChooser" = [ "gtk" ]; # or "kde"
};

Waybar launches twice

When using a configuration option like programs.waybar.enable, waybar may launch twice on Niri. This is because the default Niri config file launches waybar on launch. Remove the spawn-at-startup "waybar" from the config file, or add waybar to your systems packages without using the home-manager option.

See Also

• Wayland
• Sway
• Wallpapers for Wayland
• niri-flake