hyprland-mcp

An MCP server for Hyprland desktop control. An AI agent uses it to see your desktop and act on it. The agent can test an app in the background without taking over your screen.

What it does

The server gives an agent these tools:

• See the desktop. List every window, including windows on other workspaces. Capture any window, even one that is occluded or hidden. The capture does not disturb the app.
• Type and click. Send text, key chords, mouse clicks, and clipboard paste. The click path uses a native plugin when it is loaded (see below).
• Launch and control. Start apps, move them to a private agent workspace, focus, close.

The agent workspace

The agent works on its own workspace. You work on yours. The agent reads windows, takes screenshots, and sends input to its workspace. Your view never changes.

Launch an app into the agent workspace and move it there:

launch { command: "foot", args: ["--title", "agent-shell"], wait_for_window: true }
workspace { id: -42, window: "foot" }

The agent sees the window wherever it sits. No focus change. No workspace switch.

The click plugin

The server can click any window through the hyprland-mcp-click plugin. The plugin adds a sendclick dispatcher. One dispatch clicks a window, even a hidden one, with no flash. The server uses it when the plugin is loaded and falls back to its old path otherwise.

Install the plugin:

hyprpm add https://github.com/Keylessboi/hyprland-mcp-click
hyprpm enable hyprland-mcp-click

Requirements

• Hyprland 0.41+
• Node 20+
• grim, wtype, wl-clipboard (for text input and screenshots)
• ydotoold (only for the fallback click path)

Install

git clone https://github.com/Keylessboi/hyprland-mcp.git
cd hyprland-mcp
npm install

Run as a systemd service

A user unit is installed at ~/.config/systemd/user/hyprland-mcp.service. It runs the compiled binary.

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now hyprland-mcp.service
journalctl --user -u hyprland-mcp.service -f

Rebuild the binary after code changes:

bun build src/index.ts --compile --outfile dist/hyprland-mcp
systemctl --user restart hyprland-mcp.service

Wire into opencode

The opencode config points at the compiled binary:

"mcp": {
  "hyprland": {
    "type": "local",
    "command": ["/home/travis/Projects/hyprland-mcp/dist/hyprland-mcp"],
    "timeout": 10000
  }
}

Run tests

npm install
npx vitest run          # deterministic tests; no live compositor needed
npx tsc --noEmit        # typecheck

The tests use a fake Hyprland socket. They never touch the live desktop.

Text-only models and screenshots

The screenshot tool returns an image plus a coordinate mapping. A vision-capable model sees the image inline. A text-only model gets the coordinates.

The tool also writes every capture to a file under ~/Pictures/hyprland-mcp/ and returns that absolute path in the file field. A text-only model hands the path to a vision subagent, which reads the file and describes what it shows.

If your model cannot see images (for example deepseek-v4-flash), it MUST route screenshots through the vision skill to learn what is on screen. The skill sends the image (by file path) to a vision-capable model and returns a JSON description. Never let a text-only model guess what a screenshot shows. The directory is private (0700).

VM testing

A KVM VM runs Hyprland for live smoke tests. The full setup guide is in docs/test-vm.md.

Docs

• docs/architecture.md — how the server works
• docs/plugin.md — the click plugin integration
• docs/troubleshooting.md — common failures and fixes
• docs/test-vm.md — VM setup

License

MIT