Bezel

Bezel turns the edges of your Linux trackpad into a configurable control surface. Bind 1–4 fingers independently: use one finger on the left edge for volume, two for brightness, and three for workspace controls.

bezel-teaser.mp4

Features

• Taps, double taps, holds, eight swipe directions, and repeating slides.
• Gesture Studio: a terminal wizard with gesture previews, 30 action presets, and custom commands.
• Different bindings for each edge and finger count, with shared or per-binding sensitivity.
• NixOS and Home Manager support, plus compatible legacy one-finger configuration.
• Normal center touches remain available to your desktop.

Bezel requires Linux, Wayland, and a trackpad with type-B multitouch slots. Pinch/zoom and tap-then-swipe gestures are not implemented.

Install

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/indra55/bezel/main/install.sh | bash

Run the same command to update. On first install, Gesture Studio helps you configure gestures and set up the service. Command tools such as wpctl, brightnessctl, and playerctl must be installed separately.

From source:

cargo install --git https://github.com/indra55/bezel

For NixOS and Home Manager, see the installation guide.

First setup

Add your user to the input group and reboot:

sudo usermod -aG input "$USER"

On NixOS, configure the input and uinput groups declaratively. See the guide for permissions and udev setup.

Bezel reads ~/.config/bezel/config.toml. To open Gesture Studio and edit your bindings:

bezel --configure

Use bezel --help to see available options. Gesture Studio requires Bash and Python 3.11+ to edit existing configurations. From a cloned checkout, ./onboard.sh also works; the NixOS package provides bezel-onboard as well. These CLI options require v1.1.0 or later:

Command	Purpose
bezel --configure	Edit gesture bindings in Gesture Studio
bezel --check-config	Validate the config without starting the daemon
bezel --list-devices	List readable, compatible trackpad names and paths
bezel --config ./gestures.toml	Start with an alternate config and reload it on changes
bezel --status	Inspect the user service, its open input device, and the config on disk
bezel --restart	Restart the user service, or start it if stopped
bezel --stop	Stop the user service

Combine --config PATH with --check-config, --status, or place it before --configure to use that file. --status queries bezel.service; it does not discover manually started daemons.

bezel --restart and bezel --stop use systemd's bezel.service and its installed configuration; they do not accept --config. Stopping leaves autostart enabled for your next session.

A two-finger swipe on the left edge can control brightness:

[[bindings]]
zone = "left"
fingers = 2
gesture = "swipe_up"
action = "command"
cmd = "brightnessctl set 10%+"

If the installer or a Nix module already runs Bezel as a service, do not start another instance from your compositor.

Documentation

Read the full documentation for:

• Installation, permissions, and first setup.
• Gesture bindings, presets, and sensitivity settings.
• NixOS and Home Manager configuration.
• Autostart, on-screen notifications, and the web visualizer.
• Device selection and troubleshooting.

The same guide is available in this repository. Configuration templates: TOML and Nix.

The guide describes the current main branch. Check releases for published binaries.

Contributing

Report a bug or suggest a feature. Include your Bezel version, compositor, trackpad model, and relevant logs when reporting a problem. Documentation improvements belong in docs/guide.md.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later.