moocow(1)
moocow(1) moocow - cow IPC client moocow(1)

moocow - send commands to a running cow instance

moocow command [args ...]

moocow -p [-P prompt] [-S prompt] [-C colour]

moocow is the command-line IPC client for the cow(1) window manager. It connects to the cow IPC socket, sends the given command, waits for the JSON response, and prints it as formatted JSON to standard output.

Each shell argument is encoded as a separate cow command argument. Normal shell quoting therefore preserves values containing spaces; it is not necessary to quote the entire command. For compatibility and advanced uses, a single argument is treated as a complete command string. The full command language is described in cow(1).

Options belonging to moocow must precede command. Once command is seen, all remaining options are passed to cow unchanged. An optional -- may still be used before command, but is not required.

With -p, moocow stays running and reads commands from standard input. When run interactively it prints a connection banner containing the moocow version and client ID, then the prompt >>> before each command. Incomplete commands use the prompt ... until the command is complete. A backslash (\) at the end of a line continues the command on the next line.

Persistent mode also recognises local commands which begin with . and are not sent to cow:

.moocow-set pretty-print-json boolean

Enable or disable formatted JSON responses. The default is true.

.moocow-show

Print current local moocow settings.

-h

Print usage and exit.

-p

Read and evaluate commands persistently. The client ID shown in the connection banner is the moocow process ID.

-P prompt

Set the primary prompt used by -p. The default is >>> .

-S prompt

Set the continuation prompt used by -p. The default is ... .

-C colour

Set the prompt colour used by -p. The default is red. Supported colours are black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, and none.

0

The command was accepted and cow responded with "ok": true.

1

A connection error occurred, or cow responded with "ok": false. The error message is included in the JSON response and printed to standard output. In -p mode, moocow keeps reading commands but exits with status 1 if any command failed.

COW_IPC_SOCKET

Override the socket path. When set, moocow connects to this path instead of the default.

XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

Used to locate the default socket path. Must be set if COW_IPC_SOCKET is not.

WAYLAND_DISPLAY

Used to qualify the default socket name so separate CoW instances in the same runtime directory do not share a command socket.

$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/cow-$WAYLAND_DISPLAY-cmd.sock

Default IPC command socket created by cow(1). If WAYLAND_DISPLAY is unset, the fallback path is $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/cow-cmd.sock.

Query all managed windows:

moocow show -a window

Apply a decoration profile:

moocow decor -a default

Switch to desk 3:

moocow desk -d 3

Reload the configuration:

moocow quit -r

Close the focused window:

moocow winops -c

Target a window whose title contains a space:

moocow winops -t '/Mozilla Firefox/' -c

The equivalent raw-command form remains available:

moocow 'winops -t "/Mozilla Firefox/" -c'

List all available commands:

moocow show -a command

Write the current serializable configuration as commands which can be loaded by cow(1):

moocow show -f config config > cow.generated.conf

Config-formatted responses are printed as plain text. Other responses retain their JSON envelope.

Run commands persistently:

moocow -p

Run persistently with custom prompts:

moocow -p -P 'cow> ' -S '...> ' -C green

cow(1), cowbar(1)

Thomas Adam

2026-08-30 0.2-34-ge7151ab