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Yashiki

A tiling window manager for macOS in Rust, inspired by River

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HN · launched Jan 19, 2026 · 23 upvotes (top 33%) · 1 view

Niche: desktop window managers · 103 launches, 13 in the last 7 days ▼ -7% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags
  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

More like this: all 103 launches in desktop window managers →

Could you build this?

No Developing a macOS tiling window manager requires reverse-engineering and hooking into undocumented macOS SkyLight/CoreGraphics private APIs, managing accessibility event loops, and deep systems engineering in Rust/Objective-C.

What it would actually take: The tool must interact with macOS's private WindowServer and Accessibility APIs (HIServices, AXUIElement, SkyLight framework) using Rust with Objective-C FFI bindings. It requires building a custom dynamic window layout engine, intercepting global hotkeys, tracking window focus/space change notifications, and handling macOS SIP restrictions and permissions. Deep low-level macOS internals expertise is essential, as the necessary OS interfaces are intentionally undocumented and frequently break across macOS releases.

Discussion

10 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: Rectangle - manual window positioning tool, Yabai - automatic macOS window manager, Amethyst - tiling window manager for macOS, AeroSpace - tiling window manager for macOS

Concerns raised: Lack of screenshots or demo video explaining differentiators, Tag-based workspace management not clearly explained to users, Unclear how it differs from Rectangle and other existing tools, Core functionality and API stability still in progress

Feature requests: Add screenshots and demo video to documentation, Clarify README with visuals explaining River philosophy and tag-based workspaces

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 4261 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #1398 of 4262 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 82 days after the earliest competitor.

  • tatami · github · 2026-11-11 · 82 upvotes · similarity 0.86
  • Dinky · github · 2026-09-26 · 24 upvotes · similarity 0.84
  • Tinywm · hn · 2026-10-16 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.77
  • tinywm · github · 2026-10-14 · 22 upvotes · similarity 0.77
  • OmniWM a macOS tiling window manager Niri inspired · hn · 2025-12-25 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.75
  • SlideScroll · github · 2026-10-22 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.75
  • aro · github · 2026-09-22 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.69
  • window-sweaters · github · 2026-09-15 · 587 upvotes · similarity 0.69

Related data

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.