A Wayland-native command-line automation tool.

Inspired by ydotool, it simulates keyboard and mouse input using native Wayland protocols, no root privileges, no daemons, no kernel hacks.

• click - simulate mouse button presses
• mousemove - Move the pointer (relative or absolute)
• type - type strings of text
• key- press and release individual keys
• stdin - stream key events from standard input in real time
• no root required
• no daemon required

whydotool works on most major Wayland compositors via either:

• Native Wayland protocols

• xdg-desktop-portal RemoteDesktop interface

Keyboard input (key, type, stdin):

• wp_virtual_keyboard

Pointer input (click, mousemove):

• wlr_virtual_pointer

Universal alternative: If your compositor doesn’t support the above protocols, whydotool can use the xdg-desktop-portal RemoteDesktop interface. See the list of supported backends

If your compositor doesn't support the specific protocols above, it will likely work through the portal interface. Check the linked compatibility tables to verify support for your compositor.

The portals backend enables input injection via the xdg-desktop-portal RemoteDesktop interface. This is useful if your compositor doesn’t support the native virtual input protocols, like GNOME, which supports neither, or KDE Plasma, which lacks the virtual-keyboard protocol.

Build with:

cargo build --features portals

enabling portal drags in a bunch of heavy dependencies such as zbus and PipeWire, which significantly increases the final binary size and compilation times.

Type text:

whydotool type "Hello Wayland"

Press a key:

whydotool key 56:1 62:1 62:0 56:0

Relatively move mouse pointer by -100,100:

whydotool mousemove -x -100 -y 100

Move mouse pointer to 100,100:

whydotool mousemove --absolute -x 100 -y 100

Mouse right click:

whydotool click 0xC1

Mouse repeating left click:

whydotool click --repeat 5 --next-delay 25 0xC0