senpai(5)

NAME

senpai - Configuration file format and settings

DESCRIPTION

A senpai configuration file is a scfg file. See https://git.sr.ht/~emersion/scfg.

Some settings are required, the others are optional.

SETTINGS

address (required)
    The address (host[:port]) of the IRC server. senpai uses TLS connections by default unless you specify tls option to be false. TLS connections default to port 6697, plain-text use port 6667.

    An optional scheme can be specified (scheme://host[:port]):

    •   irc:// is the implicit default, TLS is enabled or disabled according to the tls configuration value.
    •   ircs:// enables TLS.
    •   irc+insecure:// disables TLS (plain-text IRC).
    •   ircs+insecure:// enables TLS but skips TLS certificate verification. This protects against passive MITM attacks but not against active MITM attacks.

nickname (required)
    Your nickname, sent with a NICK IRC message. It mustn't contain spaces or colons (:).

realname
    Your real name, or actually just a field that will be available to others and may contain spaces and colons. Sent with the USER IRC message. By default, the value of nick is used.

username
    Your username, sent with the USER IRC message and also used for SASL authentication. By default, the value of nick is used.

password
    Your password, used for SASL authentication. See also password-cmd.

password-cmd command [arguments...]
    Alternatively to providing your SASL authentication password directly in plaintext, you can specify a command to be run to fetch the password at runtime. This is useful if you store your passwords in a separate (probably encrypted) file using `gpg` or a command line password manager such as pass or gopass. If a password-cmd is provided, the value of password will be ignored and the first line of the output of password-cmd will be used for login.

    The command and arguments are already quoted by scfg, so there is no need to additionally quote the whole command string. For example:

    password-cmd pass "Messaging/irc"

channel
    A space separated list of channel names that senpai will automatically join at startup and server reconnect. This directive can be specified multiple times.

    This directive should not be used when using a bouncer, as the bouncer already remembers and joins senpai to its saved channels automatically.

highlight
    A space separated list of keywords that will trigger a notification and a display indicator when said by others. This directive can be specified multiple times.

    By default, senpai will use your current nickname.

on-highlight-beep
    Enable sending the bell character (BEL) when you are highlighted. Defaults to disabled.

pane-widths { ... }
    Configure the width of various UI panes.

    Pane widths are set as sub-directives of the main pane-widths directive:

    pane-widths {
        nicknames 16
    }

    This directive supports the following sub-directives:

    nicknames
        The number of cells that the column for nicknames occupies in the timeline. By default, 14.

    channels
        The number of cells that the column for channels occupies on screen. By default, 16. Use special value 0 to make the channel list horizontal. If the value is negative, the channel list will be horizontal by default and will take the positive (opposite) width value when toggled with F7.

    members
        The number of cells that that the column for the list of channel members occupies on screen. By default, 16. Use special value 0 to disable. If the value is negative, the member list will be disabled by default and will take the positive (opposite) width value when toggled with F8.

    text
        The maximum message text line width for messages, in number of cells. By default, the value is zero, which means that there is no maximum. Useful for keeping a readable line width on large screens.

tls
    Enable TLS encryption. Defaults to true.

typings
    Send typing notifications which let others know when you are typing a message. Defaults to true.

mouse
    Enable or disable mouse support. Defaults to true.

spell-check
    Enable spell checking using harper-ls. Requires harper-ls to be installed. English only for now. Defaults to false.

colors { ... }
    Settings for colors of different UI elements.

    Colors can be set either by name ("red"), by number (from 0 to 255, for the default 256 terminal colors; -1 meaning default), or by RGB hex true color (#rrggbb).

    Colors are set as sub-directives of the main colors directive:

    colors {
        prompt green
    }

Sub-directive | Description
prompt <color> | color for ">"-prompt that appears in command mode
unread <color> | foreground color for unread buffer names in buffer lists
status [...] | foreground color for status event lines (e.g. join, part, nick changes) in buffers, see table below
nicks [...] | color scheme for user nicks, see table below

status sub-directive | Description
status <color> | show status events with the specified color
status disabled | hide status events

nicks sub-directive | Description
nicks base | show nicks with 16 different colors (default)
nicks extended | show nicks with 256 different colors
nicks fixed [<others>] | show nicks with a fixed color, optionally specifying the colors for other nicks
nicks self <self> | show self nick with a fixed specified color (can be added along other directives)

shortcuts { ... }
    Settings for custom keyboard shortcuts.

    Shortcuts are defined by `<key> <action> [<params>...]` subdirectives:

    shortcuts {
        Alt+k cursor-delete-after
        Shift+Alt+Page_Up set-editor "/me slaps OP with a large trout"
    }

    Keys are optional modifiers (Control/Shift/Alt/Super) and a key name, which can either be a literal character (e.g. k) or a name for that key, taken from the XKB key names (on Linux, see wev for finding key names, e.g. Page_Up, XF86AudioPlay).

    A custom shortcut will override any default shortcut for that key.

action | Description
none | clears the shortcut, no action
quit | clear the editor, or type `/quit`
set-editor <text> | set the editor to the passed text, if empty
cursor-start | move the cursor to the beginning of the editor
cursor-end | move the cursor to the end of the editor
redraw | refresh the window
scroll-up | go up in the timeline
scroll-down | go down in the timeline
scroll-next-highlight | go down to the next highlight
scroll-previous-highlight | go up to the next highlight
buffer-next | go to the next buffer
buffer-previous | go to the previous buffer
buffer-next-unread | go to the next unread buffer
buffer-previous-unread | go to the previous unread buffer
cursor-right-word | move the cursor to the next word
cursor-left-word | move the cursor to the previous word
cursor-right | move the cursor to the next character
cursor-left | move the cursor to the previous character
cursor-up | scroll back one line in the editor
cursor-down | scroll forward one line in the editor
cursor-delete-previous-word | delete the previous word in the editor
cursor-delete-next-word | delete the next word in the editor
cursor-delete-previous | delete the previous character in the editor
cursor-delete-next | delete the next character in the editor
cursor-delete-before | delete from the cursor to the beginning of the line
cursor-delete-after | delete from the cursor to the end of the line
search-editor | reverse-search in the editor history
auto-complete | open/select the auto-completion dialog/item
close-overlay | close any open overlay buffer (e.g. search results)
toggle-channel-list | show/hide the vertical channel list
toggle-member-list | show/hide the vertical member list
send | send the contents of the editor
buffer <number>|last | go the 0-indexed numbered buffer, or the last one

debug
    Advanced. Dump all sent and received data to the home buffer, useful for debugging. Defaults to false.

transient
    Advanced. Run an ephemeral instance without disk reads/writes (except for the initial configuration). Can be useful for public instances. Defaults to false.

local-integrations
    Advanced. Enables integrations with the local system (e.g. notifications through DBus). Can be useful to disable on systems planned to be used through SSH. Defaults to true.

on-highlight-path
    Advanced. senpai will notify you by default without the need for a custom highlight script. Alternative path to a shell script to be executed when you are highlighted. By default, senpai looks for a highlight shell script at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/senpai/highlight. If no file is found at that path, and an alternate path is not provided, highlight command execution is disabled.

    If unset, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config/.

    Before the highlight script is executed, the following environment variables are populated:

    Shell scripts MUST ENSURE VARIABLES appear QUOTED in the script file, OR YOU WILL BE OPEN TO SHELL INJECTION ATTACKS. Shell scripts must also ensure characters like '*' and '?' are not expanded.

Environment variable | Description
BUFFER | buffer where the message appeared
HERE | equals 1 if BUFFER is the current buffer, 0 otherwise
MESSAGE | content of the message
SENDER | nickname of the sender

    Note: when passing those to notify-send(1), some notification daemons use \ for escape sequences in the body, which causes \ to disappear from the message or triggers unintended side-effects (like newlines).

    To get around this, you can double the backslash with the following snippet:

    #!/bin/sh
    escape() {
    	printf "%s" "$1" | sed 's#\\#\\\\#g'
    }
    notify-send "[$BUFFER] $SENDER" "$(escape "$MESSAGE")"

EXAMPLES

A minimal configuration file to connect to Libera.Chat as "Guest123456":

    address irc.libera.chat
    nickname Guest123456

A more advanced configuration file that fetches a password from an external program, changes the width of some panes, and enables more colors for user nicks:

    address irc.libera.chat
    nickname Guest123456
    username senpai
    realname "Guest von Lenon"
    password-cmd gopass show irc/guest # use your favorite CLI password solution here
    channel "#rahxephon"
    pane-widths {
    	nicknames 10
    	channels 16
    	members 16
    }
    colors {
    	nicks extended
    }
    shortcuts {
        Alt+k cursor-delete-after
    }

SEE ALSO

senpai(1)