# AGENTS.md Guidance for agents working in this repository. ## What this is Quickshell components for a Hyprland desktop. The repo is a hybrid: `desktop/` is the integrated process, hosting the parts that need to talk to each other, the drawer, which is the control center, and the island. The other directories stay separate shells, each complete on its own: any of them runs alone, and running one does not require the others. `desktop/` is itself a host for modules. desktop/ the drawer (SUPER alone): sound, mail, VMs, status, performance, clipboard, appearance island/ top-centre pills on DP-1: clock, volume, tray, layout, privacy, calendar, performance appearance/ wallpaper picker and colour scheme switcher window-switcher/ expose: open windows scattered as live previews, on ALT+TAB or the top-right hot corner of DP-1 keybinds/ live keybind reminder, on SUPER+k assistant/ overlay for the voice assistant, fed by its event socket notifications/ balloons for the notification daemon's published files They are started from `~/.config/hypr/sections/autostart.lua` and keep running for the whole session. ## Reference: Modesty The island, drawer and calendar work follows the model of [Modesty](https://github.com/sandeepbist/Modesty), a Quickshell desktop. A clone lives at `~/Programming/GIT/GITHUB/Modesty`; `git pull` it before relying on it. **It is GPLv3 and this repo is GPLv2-only: read it for ideas, never copy code from it.** The roadmap and the reasons behind it are in `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-10-07-island-core-design.md`. ## The rule that bites first **A quickshell config with no visible window exits.** These components are hidden most of the time, so each holds itself open with a 1x1 transparent `PanelWindow` with `mask: Region {}`, which is click-through and draws nothing. Without it the shell loads, logs `Configuration Loaded`, reports no error, and quits. The symptom is never an error message: it is a keybind that appears to do nothing, or a panel that never paints. This was removed once during development because a process check was measuring the wrong thing, and two components broke in exactly that way. Any new component needs the same window. ## Verifying, and how not to Two traps cost real time in this repo, both about measurement rather than code. **A detached `qs` does not survive an agent's tool call.** Starting one with `&`, `nohup` or `setsid -f` and then checking `pgrep` in a later call reports `DEAD` regardless of whether the config is sound. That reads exactly like the no-visible-window exit above and sent a debugging session in the wrong direction for a dozen calls. Start it so the harness owns the process, and confirm with the log rather than a later `pgrep`. **The process is called `qs`, not `quickshell`.** Both binaries ship, but `qs` is what runs, so `pkill -x quickshell` and `pgrep -x quickshell` match nothing and silently succeed. During development this meant every "stopped" was a lie and every restart stacked another instance: 47 accumulated before the user noticed. It also produced "0 processes" readings that were mistaken twice for the shell exiting, and sent a debugging session after a bug that was not there. Use `pkill -x qs` and `pgrep -cx qs`, and check the count after. **`pkill -f` matches the agent's own shell.** The working directory is in the command line, so `pkill -f qs` or `pkill -f "foo.qml"` kills the caller and returns 144. Always `-x`, never `-f`. For anything visual, ask. Screenshots of a transient OSD are a race, and the user has the screen. ## Per-component notes Each directory's README carries its own, and they are worth reading before changing that component. The ones that generalise: - **PipeWire nodes report their initial volume before `ready` goes true.** The `ready` check alone suppresses the startup values. An extra guard on top of it ate the user's first keypress instead. - **`PwObjectTracker` is not optional.** Node properties only stay current while something binds the node; without it the volume reads once and goes stale. - **playerctld publishes a duplicate of every MPRIS player** under its own bus name. Filter by `dbusName`, not by identity. - **Key events reach a focused item, not a window.** Setting `WlrLayershell.keyboardFocus` is necessary but not sufficient: `Keys.onEscapePressed` on a `PanelWindow` never fires. - **A `Row` sizes to its children, not its parent.** Fixed child widths inside one overflowed the panel and pushed a button past its edge. - **QML's JS engine has no `String.matchAll`.** It throws, and inside a `try` that looks like a parser quietly returning nothing. Use an `exec` loop. - **Assigning `running = true` to a `Process` that is already running does nothing.** Reusing one `Process` for a sequence of commands needs `running = false` immediately before each start. - **`notmuch` fails two different ways and only one is detectable.** A rejected query prints nothing and exits 1; a query Xapian merely misparses returns a plausible wrong number and exits 0 (`tag:unread and ((` gave 41). Validate the output as an integer, which catches the first, where empty output would otherwise render as an empty inbox. Nothing catches the second, so keep such queries as fixed strings. - **notmuch deduplicates by message id, so one message can have several paths.** A message that arrived at two configured addresses is counted by both accounts under a `path:` glob, and per-account counts then sum above the total. The `account-*` tag is a property of the message, so it is singular. - **Xapian replaces files on commit.** A watch held on a filename inside the database directory dies with the file; watch the directory for `close_write,moved_to` instead, and debounce, because one commit touches several files. - **An INI section body is not "everything up to the next `[`".** Values can themselves contain brackets: `qtmaildir.conf` has folders named `[Gmail]/Bozze`, which ended a section before its `label` and made three of five accounts silently display their raw key. Walk lines instead. A first fix using a lazy quantifier and a lookahead dropped every label, which is the argument for the boring version. - **libvirt's own memory and disk figures are not what they look like.** `balloon.current` is memory allocated to the VM and reads full forever; `block.allocation` is qcow2 growth on the host, not usage inside the guest. The real numbers come from qemu-guest-agent, and the panel shows a dash rather than substituting the host-side ones. - **A managed save makes `virsh start` a restore, and nothing in `domstats` says so.** A shut-off VM carrying a saved memory image fails to start with `unable to execute QEMU command 'migrate-incoming'` every time, and the state reads a plain `shut off`. The shut-off *reason* is no help either: it reads `failed`, from the failed start, not from the save. `virsh list --all --managed-save` prints `saved` in the state column but not with `--name`, which is the form the panel lists with, so detection is `virsh dominfo ` grepped for `Managed save: yes`, polled per VM the way the agent rows are. It measured 6ms. - **Tray menus need `//@ pragma UseQApplication`** at the top of the root QML file. Without it `SystemTrayItem.display()` only logs a qCritical ("not started in QApplication mode") and nothing opens. Pragmas are read at launch, before the first import, so adding or changing one needs a restart, not a hot reload. `desktop/shell.qml` carries it. - **A tray menu is a separate popup, and hovering it un-hovers the island.** The pills lose the pointer, so the hide timer would close the island under the open menu. `display()` reports no close, so the island holds itself shown after it until the pointer returns (a ponytail ceiling in `Island.qml`). - **A `WheelHandler` on an `Image` inside the island's status pill never fired**; `MouseArea { onWheel }` in the same place works, and `SoundPage` already used it. Prefer `MouseArea.onWheel`. - **udt can snap the accent to the same colour as a palette colour used for meaning.** Measured: accent and green were both `#36d190`. The island's idle sliver is therefore `Theme.overlay`, never the accent; anything that signals state by colour must not use the accent as its neutral. - **`hyprctl switchxkblayout current next|prev` targets the main keyboard**, so no device lookup is needed. Hyprland's `activelayout` raw event fires on every switch, so the layout flag is event-driven rather than polled. - **A bare-modifier release bind works on Hyprland 0.56.2.** `hl.bind("SUPER + Super_L", ..., { release = true })` fires on SUPER pressed and released alone, and is cancelled by any key in between and by `SUPER`+drag and `SUPER`+scroll; all checked by hand. That is how SUPER alone opens the drawer. - **`FileView.setText` creates missing parent directories**, so `Prefs.qml` has no mkdir step. `Quickshell.stateDir` is a per-shell hashed directory (`by-shell/`), not `~/.local/state/quickshell`, which is why the preferences path is built from `XDG_STATE_HOME` instead. - **khal 0.11 has no JSON output**, which is why the calendar reads the vdir itself through `desktop/island/calendar/calctl` rather than parsing `khal list -f`. A month list over the 281 live event files measured 0.11s. khal and cal-notif read the same files and are unaffected by calctl's writes. - **Recurrence is expanded in naive local time.** A TZID event keeps its wall-clock time across DST that way, as RFC 5545 asks; `test_calctl.py` pins a weekly 09:00 on 26 October, the day after the change. - **Use `/usr/bin/python3` for calctl and its test.** `python3` on PATH is a pyenv shim without `icalendar`; the system interpreter has it, for cal-notif. - **`FileView` reads `/proc` and `/sys` fine, but only on `reload()`.** With `blockLoading: true`, `text()` straight after `reload()` is the fresh contents, which is how `Perf.qml` samples `/proc/stat` and hwmon every 2s without a subprocess. hwmon numbers move across boots; look chips up by their `name` file. - **A hot reload does not resize an existing layer surface.** Raising the island's `implicitHeight` from 360 to 480 reloaded cleanly while `hyprctl layers` still reported `h: 360` and the performance panel stayed cut off; `./reload.sh desktop` applied it. Check the layer size, not the source. - **A QML method cannot be named `escape`.** It shadows the global JS function, and the file fails with `Illegal method name` at load, which a hot reload reports as the whole island being unavailable. The island's Escape hooks are `back()`. - **A pill that expands for "any panel" grows for its neighbour's.** The status pill once expanded on `panel !== ""`, which was right while it hosted every panel; the calendar lives in the clock pill, and the status pill grew into an empty box beside it. Each pill names its own panels. - **Waybar is gone, both bars.** Its DP-3 functions moved to the island. The mail count is drawer-only: `Accounts.qml` watches the xapian directory itself, and `waybar-mail.sh` was deleted. - **Hyprland 0.56.2 evaluates dispatch arguments as Lua.** `dispatch focuswindow address:0x...` is a syntax error rather than a command, and it fails silently unless stderr is read. The working form is `dispatch hl.dsp.focus({ window = "address:0x..." })`. This is why `~/bin/hypr-windows.sh` is written the way it is, and its syntax was misread as legacy oddity worth modernising. - **A focus dispatched while an overlay holds the keyboard is accepted and then ignored.** A layer surface with `keyboardFocus: Exclusive` grabs the keyboard, and the compositor will not move window focus out from under that grab. The dispatch reports `ok`, nothing moves, and no log line says otherwise. Closing in the same turn does not help either, because a `close()` that clears a property leaves the surface alive until the frame after. Focus after the overlay is really gone, which `window-switcher` does with a 60ms timer. - **`HyprlandToplevel` has no `focusHistoryID` property.** It reads `undefined`, so a sort on it compares `NaN` and silently does nothing, leaving a plausible looking list in arbitrary order. The value is on `lastIpcObject`. - **`HyprlandToplevel.address` omits the `0x`** that `hyprctl clients` prints and that every dispatch requires. - **`Hyprland.toplevels` reads 0 until `refreshToplevels()` is called.** - **An uncaptured `ScreencopyView` reports `sourceSize` of `QSize(-1, -1)`**, not `(0, 0)`. An aspect ratio guard has to test for a positive height: the obvious rewrites, `!== 0` or a truthiness check, all pass on `-1` and produce a negative ratio. - **A `pragma Singleton` in a subdirectory needs no `qmldir`.** A plain directory import resolves it, the same way quickshell resolves the `Theme.qml` symlink. Tested while merging the components: the control was a reference to an undefined type, which warns `ReferenceError: is not defined`, and the singleton case produced no such warning. - **`Virsh.sampling` gates the 2s stats poll, not the whole service.** The lifecycle event stream runs unconditionally, which is what keeps the VM list and the tile's dots current while the page is closed. - **`Quickshell.Networking` and `Quickshell.Bluetooth` start empty.** Devices, the adapter and the wifi radio all read empty or false for roughly two seconds after launch, then populate. Bindings repaint when they arrive; nothing may cache the first paint. Both device lists are `ObjectModel`s, so iterate `.values`, which is a plain array. - **`NMSettings` is not in QML scope.** `typeof NMSettings` is `undefined`, so a NetworkManager profile cannot be built from scratch in QML. This is why the network module cannot join a hidden network, and the same class of limit blocks enterprise 802.1x. - **Quickshell has no BlueZ pairing agent and no generic D-Bus module.** A device needing a passkey or PIN confirmed cannot be paired from QML; `bluetoothctl` registers its own agent, so pairing is the one shell-out for a device action in the bluetooth module. - **`WifiNetwork.signalStrength` is `0..1`, not a percentage.** The known networks a scan has not refreshed report a cached `1`. - **Quickshell 0.3.1 has no generic D-Bus module**, only `Quickshell.DBusMenu`. KDE Connect state therefore comes from `qdbus6` shell-outs, not a binding, which means there is no push and the drawer polls 5s while it is open. The poll is gated on the tile's lifetime, since the tile exists exactly while the drawer panel is loaded. - **`kdeconnectd` and `kdeconnect-indicator` are separate.** The daemon runs from a system autostart; the indicator was started from the live Hyprland config. The phone-to-PC clipboard is the daemon's clipboard plugin (`KSystemClipboard`), so removing the indicator does not touch it. - **The KDE Connect battery plugin is not on every device.** `qdbus6` errors on `.../devices//battery` for a device without it, so an absent battery is an empty field, never a zero. - **`qdbus` resolves a bare `org.kde.kdeconnect.device.` as either a property or a method**, so `name`, `isReachable` and the `verificationKey()` method all use the same call shape. - **A component property named the same as the enclosing object's `id` binds to itself.** `KdeConnectModule` is `id: mod` and used to inject `KdeConnectTile { mod: mod }`; in a `Component` scope that resolves to the tile's own unset property, so `mod` arrived undefined and the page rendered no devices, with only a runtime `TypeError` in the log and a clean smoke check (the drawer was closed, so nothing was instantiated). Inject an id under a different name: `net`, `bt`, `kc`. - **Neither scan property self-terminates, and closing the drawer does not stop them.** `BluetoothAdapter.discovering` is plain BlueZ discovery and `WifiDevice.scannerEnabled` is a repeating scanner; only `discoverable` and `pairable` have timeout properties, and the scan ones have none. The scan button was the sole writer of each, and a drawer close destroys the page without touching them, so a scan started and forgotten kept the radio busy for the rest of the session. Both pages now carry a `Timer` bound to the scan property rather than started by the button, so a manual stop cancels the clock and reopening the page re-arms a fresh 60s. - **This machine does run a logind.** `elogind` is running, `pam_elogind.so` is in the PAM stack for `login`, `sddm`, `xdm` and `kde`, and `loginctl list-sessions` reports a tracked session on seat0. "Slackware has no logind" is the obvious assumption and it is wrong; it reached a committed spec once. The real caveat is narrower: `man 8 pam_elogind` says the module does nothing if the system was not booted with elogind as its init, which here it is not, so its documented removal of `$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR` at last logout is not guaranteed for this configuration. A reboot clears it regardless, because `/run/user/1000` is tmpfs. - **hypridle honours the Wayland idle-inhibit protocol here.** The compositor advertises `zwp_idle_inhibit_manager_v1` (version 1), confirmed with `wayland-info`, and waybar's built-in `idle_inhibitor` already drives it. So an idle inhibitor is asserted over Wayland, not D-Bus, and needs no extra service. `hypridle` has `ignore_dbus_inhibit` and `ignore_systemd_inhibit` knobs; neither is set in the live config. - **waybar's built-in `idle_inhibitor` cannot indicate state it does not own.** It holds its own inhibitor object, and its `activated`/`deactivated` classes are that object's state, with no input path. It cannot be demoted to an indicator for a mode owned elsewhere, and left running alongside another inhibitor it asserts a second, independent one, so idle resumes only when both release. Replace it with a `custom/` module reading the owning component's state. - **A `FileView` that writes the file it watches sees its own write.** `watchChanges` fires `fileChanged` on `setText()` as well as on an external change, so a handler that writes in response to a change loops. The status registry compares the reparsed value against the current one and assigns only on a difference, which makes the self-write a no-op. - **`IdleInhibitor` needs a non-null `window`.** It has no window of its own and does nothing without one. A singleton therefore cannot assert an inhibitor unaided: `shell.qml` hands it the keepalive `PanelWindow`, which is the one window that exists for the whole session. - **A layer-surface idle inhibitor is not observable via `hyprctl clients` or `hyprctl layers`.** `hyprctl clients | grep -ci inhibit` counts the per-toplevel `inhibitingIdle` field only, and an inhibitor asserted on a `PanelWindow` layer surface appears in neither listing, so the count does not move even when the inhibitor is asserted. Check it behaviorally: run a throwaway `hypridle -c` with a short timeout whose `on-timeout` writes a marker, confirm the marker does not appear while presentation is on, and that it appears within a few seconds of turning presentation off. - **The notification daemon is a separate process that owns the D-Bus name.** The quickshell side only reads its published files under `$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/notifyd/`; the files are the interface, and `notifyctl` is the one path back. `notifications/` is inert without it: balloons still draw, but close and actions do nothing. - **Suppression is in the balloon shell, not the daemon.** `status.dnd` withholds low and normal balloons and `notifyd/snooze` withholds all, but the drawer's reserved space lists everything, because a list the user opened is not an interruption. - **A notification appears as a balloon or in the drawer's reserved space, never both.** The drawer writes `notifyd/drawer` and the balloon shell reads it; `desktop/NotificationList.qml` is the space. - **The old waybar notification module shelled out to `dunstctl`.** It and its `notifications.py` are archived under `~/bin/archive/`, with the rest of the stock waybar theme; do not resurrect them. - **A `Socket` whose connect failed never retries.** Quickshell 0.3.1 keeps the failed `QLocalSocket`, so setting `connected = true` again (or toggling it, or changing `path`) is a no-op: `setConnected` only connects when no socket object exists. Retry with a fresh `Socket`, e.g. inside a `LazyLoader` toggled off and on (`assistant/Assistant.qml`). A dropped connection is different: `disconnected` clears the socket, so a later `connected = true` works, until one of those attempts fails. - **llama-server's `/slots?model=` loads the model.** In router mode a slot query for an unloaded model autoloads it into VRAM, so a status probe is not read-only: one during the `ai` module's design put Gemma back on the GPU. Pass `autoload=false`, which answers 400 `model is not loaded` instead. Checking `/models` for `loaded` first is not enough on its own, because the model can unload between the two requests. ## Theme No component defines a palette. `udt-accent`, in the `unified-desktop-theme` repo alongside this one, writes `~/.cache/udt/udt-palette.qml` from its `palette.rasi`, carrying the whole Catppuccin Macchiato palette plus the accent snapped from the current wallpaper. `Theme.qml` parses and watches that file, so a palette edit recolours a running shell with no restart. What is left in `Theme.qml` is a fallback for before the file is read, and for a machine without unified-desktop-theme. Do not grow it into a second palette: that duplication is what generating the file removed. The file is parsed rather than imported because a generated QML singleton cannot be imported without a `qmldir` beside it, and the wal cache has no reason to carry one. There is one `Theme.qml`, in `shared/`, and each component holds a symlink to it. It was four copies that had already drifted: `vm-manager` was missing `surfaceAlt` and `volume-osd` was missing `green`, `yellow` and `surfaceAlt`, so the shared file is the superset and the two thin ones gained properties they never had. A symlink rather than a shared import path because a singleton outside the config directory needs a `qmldir`, which is the same friction that keeps the palette parsed rather than imported; quickshell follows the link and resolves the singleton with no qmldir and no consumer change. Editing any component's `Theme.qml` edits all three. Do not replace a link with a copy. `shared/Workspaces.qml`, the workspace icon map, is linked the same way, from `desktop/` and `window-switcher/`, so the island's flick and the switcher's cards show the same icons. `Status.qml` and `Notify.qml` are shared links too. Hot reload does not follow any of them (see Reloading). Glyphs are Nerd Font private-use codepoints and render with `Theme.iconFamily`, pinned to Inconsolata Nerd Font, not `Theme.fontFamily` ("Noto Sans" has no glyphs). Without the pin, fontconfig falls back per codepoint and the same codepoint can be a different glyph in a different Nerd Font: the ethernet codepoint `\uf6ff` rendered as a gamepad (`gamepad-variant` in JetBrains Mono Nerd Font, absent from Inconsolata, whose ethernet is `\uef44`). A new glyph must exist in Inconsolata Nerd Font and mean what it says; check the font cmap rather than trusting the codepoint. ## Blur Translucency is set in QML; the frosting is the compositor's. Hyprland blurs a layer surface only when a rule names it, matched on the namespace the window sets, in `~/.config/hypr/sections/decorations.lua`. A new component that wants frosting needs its own `hl.layer_rule` and a distinct `WlrLayershell.namespace`. Without the rule it still works, rendering flat translucent. History: a panel that should sit below waybar rather than over it used `exclusionMode: ExclusionMode.Normal`, which respected waybar's exclusive zone without the component knowing the bar's height. Measured with `hyprctl layers` while waybar existed: waybar at `y=-540 h=42`, a `Normal` overlay on the same screen at `y=-498 h=1038`, starting exactly where the bar ended, so the backdrop never dimmed it. Waybar is gone, so the `desktop` drawer now starts at the top edge of DP-1 and keeps `Normal` so a bar added later is respected. Components that cover the whole screen use `ExclusionMode.Ignore`. `window-switcher` has namespace `quickshell-window-switcher` and a `blur-window-switcher` rule of its own. The island has namespace `quickshell-island` and a `blur-island` rule. ## Reloading | | How | | --- | --- | | a component's QML | quickshell hot-reloads on save; no restart | | palette | regenerate with `udt-accent `; watched, no restart | | Hyprland binds, layer rules, autostart | `hyprctl reload` | | a running shell in a bad state | `./reload.sh [component...]`, from the user's terminal | `reload.sh` restarts components rather than hot-reloading them. The volume OSD once drew only its label, with the icon, bar and device line clipped off, and a hot reload fixed it while the code and the layout both measured correct, so the stuck state lived in the running process. Do not run the script from an agent's tool call: the detached `qs` it starts dies with the call (see Verifying above), which leaves the user's desktop without its shells. Hot reload covers adding and removing windows too: the keepalive window above was added to a running shell and took effect on save. Hot reload does **not** pick up a new component *file*. A directory's generated `qmldir` is its import index, and it is only regenerated when a file that imports that directory reloads, not when a file appears in it. Adding `desktop/Switch.qml` while only editing files under `modules/` left it invisible to the running shell, so `NetworkPage` and `BluetoothPage` could not resolve `Switch` and the two modules dropped from the grid; the code was correct and a fresh `qs` process rendered it. Force the rescan by changing a file that imports the directory (`desktop/shell.qml`), or restart the shell. Touch alone does not reload: the content must change. Switching git branches under a running shell can drop a component until a restart. Merging the island branch meant a moment on master without `desktop/island/`; the shell hot-reloaded then, logged `Ignoring unresolvable import ".../desktop/island"`, and kept running without the island after the files came back, because a reappearing directory is not re-indexed. Restart the affected component after any checkout that adds or removes a directory. Hot reload does **not** follow a symlink either. Editing `shared/Notify.qml` left both running shells on the old `sanitize`, while an edit to `notifications/NotificationBalloon.qml` in the same pass did reload, so the shell looked current and was not: a remote Markdown image the new filter blocks was fetched anyway. After editing anything under `shared/`, force a reload of every component that links it, the same way as above. `qs -p ` runs one directly. `qs -p ipc call ` reaches a running one, which is how `SUPER+v` opens the VM drawer. ## Conventions - GPLv2 only, with the header notice in every source file. - Commits carry the reasoning, not just the change: several of the notes above exist because a commit message explained why something was the way it was. - No home paths in committed files. A gitleaks hook blocks them and has been right every time; `~` in documentation, absolute paths only in the live Hyprland config, which is not in this repo.