tarmac documentation

tarmac is a keyboard-driven tiling window manager for macOS, written in Rust. It uses a binary space partition (BSP) layout engine to automatically arrange your windows, and exposes a Lua configuration API and IPC socket for full control.

What tarmac does

• Tiles windows automatically using BSP splits
• Provides 10 numbered workspaces per monitor plus named scratchpads
• Draws window borders via ers, a companion border renderer
• Accepts commands over a Unix socket (IPC) via tarmacctl
• Configures entirely through a Lua file at ~/.config/tarmac/init.lua
• Includes a system tray with workspace switching and a settings window for live configuration
• Supports window rules to auto-float or assign apps to specific workspaces
• Emits rich events for status bar integration (sketchybar, etc.)

What tarmac does not do

• Run on Linux or Windows — it uses macOS-specific APIs (SkyLight, Accessibility, CoreGraphics)
• Provide a built-in status bar — use an external bar like sketchybar and set bar_height
• Offer multiple layout algorithms — it's BSP-only (no master-stack, columns, or spiral)
• Include animations or smooth transitions

Where to start

If you're new to tarmac, start with Getting Started to install and run it for the first time.

If you're already running tarmac and want to configure it, jump to Configuration.

For scripting and automation, see IPC and Events & Hooks.