---
name: "notionflux"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "notion"
version: "1:4.0.5-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/notionflux"
---

# notionflux(1)

Lua remote control for notion

## NAME

**notionflux** – Lua remote control for notion

## SYNOPSIS

**notionflux** \[**-R** \| **-e** *lua-code* \| *file*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**notionflux** is a tool to send scripts to the Lua scripting engine inside the [notion(1)](/notion/1.md) window manager. The script can thus access notion's internal Lua API.

There are two modes of operation, interactive and batch. Interactive mode is enabled by running **notionflux** with its standard input connected to a terminal and without passing any commandline flags.

Otherwise, batch mode is enabled:

- **-R**

  Force batch-mode even if stdin is connected to a terminal. Lua code is read from stdin until the end-of-file is reached, is sent to notion for processing, and the result is read back and displayed.

- **-e** *code*

  Almost the same as above, except instead of reading from stdin, the command line parameter *code* is submitted for processing.

- *file*

  The content of the file is evaluated.

## INTERACTIVE MODE

This mode is similar to running an interactive [lua(1)](/lua/1.md) shell. Tab completion for notion's Lua API is available, as well as line-editing.

Code that has been entered is evaluated by notion as soon as it is a complete Lua statement. The result is displayed after which the next statement can be entered.

## ENVIRONMENT

- DISPLAY

  The DISPLAY environment variable must be set to an X server running notion in order for **notionflux** to obtain the socket path.

## SECURITY

**notionflux** connects to [notion(1)](/notion/1.md) through a Unix domain socket. This socket is created with read/write permissions only for the user who started notion. The socket path can be queried with the following command:

```
$ xprop -root _NOTION_MOD_NOTIONFLUX_SOCKET
_NOTION_MOD_NOTIONFLUX_SOCKET(STRING) = "/tmp/fileuj6onu"
```

## EXAMPLES

The command

```
$ notionflux -e "return notioncore.current():name()"
"emacs: notionflux.1"
```

will display the title of the currently focused window, while

```
$ notionflux -e "print(notioncore.current():name())"
"emacs: notionflux.1"
nil
```

will collect the messages and print them before returning. In order to write to notion's standard output (usually *~/.xsession-errors*), like print used to in previous versions of **notionflux**, please use

```
$ notionflux -e 'io.stdout:write("hello .xsession-errors!\n")'
nil
```

Using input redirection:

```
$ echo "return notioncore.current()" | notionflux
WClientWin: 0x9bb6b8
```

Using interactive mode:

```
$ notionflux
lua> notioncore.current():rootwin_of()
WRootWin: 0x8c9688
lua> do
...>   local x = 42 -- Lua defaults to global scope, don't litter
...>   return x
...> end
42
lua> ^D
```

In any response from mod\_notionflux, strings are quoted in a way that can be directly pasted back into a Lua interpreter to yield the same string, while other types are turned into their string representation using **tostring**(). This is why there are quotation marks around the response in the first example where nil (which is the return value of a block which has no return statement) does not have them.

## SEE ALSO

*The notion homepage:* **https://notionwm.net/**

*Configuring and extending Notion with Lua:* **https://raboof.github.io/notion-doc/notionconf/**

*The Lua 5.4 reference manual:* **https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html**

*/usr/share/doc/notion/*

[notion(1)](/notion/1.md), [X(7)](/X/7.md), [lua(1)](/lua/1.md), [readline(3)](/readline/3.md)

## HISTORY

An ionflux command appeared in ion3 around 2004. It was adapted to notion by the notion development team when notion was forked from ion3 in 2010.

## AUTHORS

**notionflux** was rewritten in 2019 by The Notion development team under the GNU GPL in order to add the interactive mode.

## BUGS

Currently, the script must be 4095 bytes or shorter. If you need more, consider passing a filename, which is passed to notion for evaluation and therefore circumvents this limit.