Problem with opening floating window in i3wm: alacritty

I am using i3 in arch and I have switched to alacritty as a terminal.

However, alacritty will not open as a floating window. This is my code in i3 config:

bindsym $mod+Return exec alacritty
bindsym $mod+Shift+Return exec -no-startup-id alacritty --role=floating
for_window [window_role="^floating$"] floating enable

There is no error message. Interestingly enough: opening a regular window of alacritty and then floating it via $mod+Shift+Space works.

Any hints? Can I somehow troubleshoot this - e.g. execute a window with verbose output as floating?

There are two errors in your config:

1. Typo in exec -no-startup-id missing an extra hyphen(-), should be exec --no-startup-id
2. --role is not a valid option in alacritty.

Instead you can use --class option (to set WM_CLASS property) as below:

bindsym $mod+Shift+Return exec --no-startup-id alacritty --class=floating
for_window [class="^floating$"] floating enable