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GLOBAL_ACTIONS

snowarch edited this page Apr 25, 2026 · 1 revision

Global Actions

Global actions are keyboard-driven commands you can trigger from the Overview search bar or bind to keys. They're the shell's equivalent of a command palette.

Using actions

Open Overview (Super+Space) and start typing. Actions appear alongside app results. They're prefixed with their category:

  • > for shell actions (toggle sidebar, switch family, open settings)
  • = for calculator (evaluates math expressions via qalc)
  • $ for system actions (lock, logout, reboot)

You can also bind any action directly to a keybind through Niri's config.

Built-in actions

Shell

Action What it does
Toggle sidebar left Open/close the left sidebar
Toggle sidebar right Open/close the right sidebar
Toggle overview Open/close workspace overview
Switch panel family Swap between ii and waffle
Open settings Launch the settings UI
Reload shell Hot-reload the shell

System

Action What it does
Lock Lock the session
Logout Show session screen
Reboot Reboot (with confirmation)
Shutdown Shutdown (with confirmation)
Suspend Suspend the system

Tools

Action What it does
Screenshot region Select a region to screenshot
Screen record Start/stop screen recording
OCR region Select a region for text recognition
Color picker Pick a color from screen
Clipboard history Open clipboard manager

Custom actions

You can add your own actions by creating scripts in:

~/.config/illogical-impulse/actions/

Each script becomes an action that appears in Overview search. The filename becomes the action name (without extension).

Example: create ~/.config/illogical-impulse/actions/deploy.sh:

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/myproject && make deploy
notify-send "Deployed" "Project deployed successfully"

The action "deploy" will now appear when you search for it in Overview.

IPC

inir globalActions list              # list all available actions
inir globalActions search "screen"   # search actions by name
inir globalActions execute <id>      # execute an action by ID

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