Set up ydotool with its daemon and uinput permissions to automate input under Wayland
domain: github.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Install ydotool and its companion daemon ydotoold (package name varies by distro, or build from source)
Add a udev rule granting the input group access to uinput, e.g. KERNEL=="uinput", GROUP="input", MODE="0660", OPTIONS+="static_node=uinput", add your user to the input group, and re-login
Start ydotoold as a background service (systemd unit) before issuing any commands — since v1.0.0 the daemon is mandatory, not optional
Point clients at the daemon's socket via the YDOTOOL_SOCKET environment variable if it isn't at the default path, and ensure the socket is readable/writable by the invoking user
Verify with ydotool key 28:1 28:0 (Enter down/up) or ydotool type "hello" once the daemon is confirmed running
Known gotchas
Because ydotool operates at the kernel uinput level instead of talking to the compositor, it has no concept of windows — every synthetic keystroke goes to whatever currently has focus, with no way to target a specific app
Socket permission mismatches are the most common failure: a daemon started as root but a client run as a normal user (or vice versa) produces permission denied until the socket is chmod'd or both run as the same user
Some Wayland compositors' input-method security policies, or Flatpak sandboxing, can still block synthetic uinput events from reaching an app even when ydotoold itself is running correctly
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