# mackstann/tinywm

The tiniest window manager.

Repository: https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/tinywm
Homepage: http://incise.org/tinywm.html
Language: C
License Family: other
Last push: 2022-03-09T10:22:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5393, "days_push": 1638, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1672, forks 153 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:20.183617+00:00)

## What it is
TinyWM is a minimal X11 window manager written in roughly 50 lines of C, supporting only window moving, resizing, raising, and sloppy focus. It is primarily intended as a teaching example of window manager programming basics, with an annotated version and a Python port.

## Use cases
- learn how to write an X11 window manager
- minimal window manager for a tiny Linux setup
- study annotated C code for Xlib event handling
- base to fork for building a custom window manager
- lightweight WM for embedded or low-resource systems

## When to choose
- you want to learn window manager fundamentals from a tiny codebase
- you need an extremely minimal X11 WM with move/resize/raise/focus only
- you want a starting point to hack into your own WM

## When to avoid
- you need tiling, workspaces, panels, or a full desktop environment
- you want an actively developed or supported window manager
- you need Wayland support

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: maintenance
- function: gui
- domain: desktop-applications, operating-systems, developer-tools, tutorials
- platform: c, python
- tags: x11, window-manager, minimalist, learning-example, tiny, linux

## Member repositories
- mackstann/tinywm (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:20.183617+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:42:38.172312+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:20.183617+00:00, sha 95df8df48424)
  - homepage: http://incise.org/tinywm.html (fetched 2026-08-29T11:15:39.527036+00:00, sha ace3f32446a1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.