barli

barli is a tiny, lightweight status bar for X11.
It runs shell commands (or plain executables) at given intervals and updates the X11 root window name with their results — perfect for minimal WMs like dwm or xmonad.

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Features

• Simple text-based configuration file (~/.config/barli.conf or ~/.barli.conf).
• Hot-reload configuration by sending SIGUSR1 to the process (no restart required).
• Runs commands periodically and displays their output.
• Supports both plain commands and full shell commands.
• Lightweight, written in Rust, with no external daemons.

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Configuration

Each line in the config defines a task:

prefix :: command :: suffix :: interval :: [shell]

• prefix → Text shown before command output
• command → The command to run
• suffix → Text shown after command output
• interval → Update interval (seconds)
• shell → Optional, set to shell to run inside /bin/sh -c

![TIP] After editing your config file, you can reload it without restarting barli by running:

pkill -USR1 barli

Example (~/.config/barli.conf)

Clock :: date :: :: 2 :: 
Mem :: free -h | awk 'NR==2{print $3}' :: used :: 10 :: shell

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Installation

Use just to build, install, and manage barli:

# build release binary
just build

# install to ~/.local/bin
just install

# uninstall
just uninstall

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Usage

Just run:

barli &

The bar text is stored in the root window name, so it will automatically be picked up by your WM’s status bar.