Anvil

Tree-based tiling that feels at home in GNOME

Anvil turns GNOME Shell into a fast, keyboard-friendly tiling environment without replacing the desktop you already use.

Install · User manual · Default keybindings · Report an issue

Note

Anvil is a GPL-3.0 fork of Forge, originally created by Jose Maranan. See the full credits.

Contents

• What Anvil does
• Demo
• Install
• Open the settings
• Learn Anvil

What Anvil does

Anvil automatically arranges windows in a tree of horizontal and vertical splits. You can navigate, move, swap, resize, float, stack, and tab windows with the keyboard, or reshape the layout with drag and drop. Layouts are maintained independently for each workspace and monitor.

Demo

_{Demo placeholder — an animated walkthrough is coming soon.}

Install

Anvil is currently installed from source. You need GNOME Shell 45 through 50.1, Git, GNU Make, Node.js 24 or newer, npm, gettext (msgfmt), and GLib schema tools (glib-compile-schemas).

git clone https://github.com/GenKerensky/anvil.git
cd anvil
npm install
make install
gnome-extensions enable anvil@GenKerensky.github.com

If GNOME Shell has not discovered a first-time installation yet, log out and back in, then run the final gnome-extensions enable command again. On X11, you can restart Shell with Alt+F2, enter r, and press Enter instead.

To update an existing source installation:

git pull --ff-only
npm install
make install

Restart GNOME Shell or log out and back in after updating when the running extension does not reload automatically.

Open the settings

Use Super+., open Anvil from the Extensions app, or run:

gnome-extensions prefs anvil@GenKerensky.github.com

Learn Anvil

The user manual covers every feature in its own guide. Start with:

• Default keybindings and disabled GNOME shortcuts
• Automatic tiling
• Keyboard navigation
• Drag and drop
• Floating windows