RIVER(1)                    General Commands Manual                   RIVER(1)

NAME
       river - non-monolithic Wayland compositor

SYNOPSIS
       river [options]

DESCRIPTION
       River is a non-monolithic Wayland compositor, it does not combine the
       compositor and window manager into one program. Instead, users can
       choose any window manager implementing the river-window-management-v1
       protocol.

       This means that river is not useful without a compatible window
       manager. A list of compatible window managers can be found on the river
       wiki: https://codeberg.org/river/wiki/src/branch/main/pages/wm-list.md

OPTIONS
       -h
           Print a help message and exit.

       -version
           Print the version number and exit.

       -c shell_command
           Override the default search paths for an init executable: instead
           shell_command will be run with /bin/sh -c. See the CONFIGURATION
           section for more details.

       -log-level [error|warning|info|debug]
           Set the log level of river. At the error log level, only errors are
           logged.  At the debug log level, everything is logged including
           verbose debug messages.

       -no-xwayland
           Disable Xwayland at runtime even if river has been built with
           support.

KEYBINDINGS
       The following keybindings are always active:

       Ctrl+Alt+F1 - Ctrl+Alt+F12
           Switch to VT 1-12

       Window managers may add additional keybindings but cannot override
       these builtin keybindings.

CONFIGURATION
       On startup river will run an executable file at
       $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/river/init if such an executable exists. If
       $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, ~/.config/river/init will be used instead.

       The executable init file will be run as a process group leader after
       river's Wayland server is initialized but before entering the main
       loop. On exit, river will send SIGTERM to this process group.

       Usually this executable is a shell script which starts the user's
       window manager and any other long-running programs. For example,
       kanshi(1) could be started to manage output configuration.

AUTHORS
       Maintained by Isaac Freund <mail@isaacfreund.com> who is assisted by
       open source contributors. For more information about river's
       development, see <https://isaacfreund.com/software/river>.

                                  2026-08-16                          RIVER(1)