Dispatching actions on Hyprland's events

Ever had a window that should float but doesn't? Think of those OAuth popups that start as Mozilla Firefox then change into Sign in – Google Accounts.

Hyprland's static window rules (like float) only trigger when a window is created — not when its title changes later. What if we could catch those title changes and react instantly?

Enter hyprwhenthen: a tiny Go tool that listens to Hyprland events and runs your scripts when regex patterns match.

Quick install

$aurHelper -S hyprwhenthen-bin

or grab a prebuilt binary from the releases page.

Example solution

Here’s a ~/.config/hyprwhenthen/config.toml that reacts whenever a window’s title matches Sign in – Google Accounts:

[[handler]]
on = "windowtitlev2"
# (.*) captures the window's address (first field), then we match the title
when = "(.*),Sign In - Google Accounts — Mozilla Firefox"
then = "~/.config/hyprwhenthen/scripts/float.sh $REGEX_GROUP_1"

And here’s a minimal float.sh:

#!/bin/bash
ADDRESS="0x$1"

# Toggle floating, resize to 50% x 50% of screen, and center it
hyprctl dispatch togglefloating "address:$ADDRESS" || \
  exit 0  # exit silently if window no longer exists

hyprctl dispatch resizewindowpixel exact 50% 50%,"address:$ADDRESS"
hyprctl dispatch centerwindow "address:$ADDRESS"

Now every OAuth popup automatically becomes a centered floating window — no more manual dragging and resizing.

Why not existing tools?

• shellevents / hyprevents → simple bash wrappers, but limited pattern matching
• pyprland → powerful, but overkill for quick one-off event reactions
• raw socat → works, but gets messy with complex logic (e.g. background processing, event ordering)

hyprwhenthen hits the sweet spot:

• ✅ Regex-based matching: match event context and capture matching groups
• ✅ Parallel execution: run handlers in the background
• ✅ Hot reloading: configuration change triggers automatic service reload
• ✅ Event ordering: events for the same window can be processed serially

Perfect for those "I wish Hyprland could just..." moments.

This is just one example. hyprwhenthen can react to any Hyprland event — window creation, focus changes, workspaces, etc. It’s up to you to define the scenarios that fit your workflow, from automatically floating popups to moving specific apps to dedicated workspaces.