Command Reference

ya CLI Commands

The ya command-line tool manages packages, plugins, and IPC:

Command	Description
ya pkg	Manage installed packages
ya pub	Publish a package
ya pub-to	Publish to a specific channel
ya emit	Emit an event to a running Yazi instance
ya pack --list	List installed packages
ya pack --upgrade	Upgrade all packages

ya pkg Subcommands

Subcommand	Description
ya pkg --list	List installed packages
ya pkg --add <url>	Install a package from URL
ya pkg --remove <name>	Remove a package
ya pkg --upgrade	Upgrade all packages

ya emit

Send a Yazi event from the command line to a running instance:

# Emit a cd event
ya emit cd "~/projects"

# Emit a quit event
ya emit quit

This is useful for scripting Yazi from external tools.

yazi CLI Flags

Flag	Description
--cwd-file <path>	Write the last-visited directory to a file on exit (used by the shell wrapper)
--clear-cache	Clear the cache directory and exit
--image-protocol <proto>	Override the image protocol (kitty, sixel, iterm2, uberzug++, chafa)
--debug	Print debug information
--version	Show version information
--help	Show help message

Shell Wrapper Integration

The --cwd-file flag enables the shell wrapper (y function):

# Inside your shell rc file:
y() {
  local tmp="$(mktemp)"
  yazi --cwd-file="$tmp" "$@"
  if [ -f "$tmp" ]; then
    cd "$(cat "$tmp")"
    rm -f "$tmp"
  fi
}

DDS Commands

DDS (Data Distribution Service) commands for multi-instance communication:

Command	Description
ya dds pub <topic>	Publish data to a topic
ya dds sub <topic>	Subscribe to a topic
dds.enabled = true	Enable DDS in yazi.toml
ya emit --dds <event>	Emit event to all Yazi instances via DDS

Package Management

Command	Description
ya pack -a <user>/<package>	Add/install a package
ya pack -a <user>/<package>:<branch>	Install from a specific branch
ya pack -l	List installed packages
ya pack -U	Upgrade all packages
ya pack -u <name>	Upgrade a specific package
ya pack -r <name>	Remove a package

Packages are installed to ~/.config/yazi/packages/.