Noctalia

quiet by design

A sleek and minimal desktop shell thoughtfully crafted for Wayland, built with Quickshell.

Features a modern modular architecture with a status bar, notification system, control panel, comprehensive system integration, and more — all styled with a warm lavender palette, or your favorite color scheme!

Preview

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⚠️ Note:
This shell currently supports Niri and Hyprland compositors. For other compositors, you will need to implement custom workspace logic in the CompositorService.

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Features

• Status Bar: Modular bar with workspace indicators, system monitors, clock, and quick access controls.
• Workspace Management: Dynamic workspace switching with visual indicators and active window tracking.
• Notifications: Rich notification system with history panel.
• Application Launcher: Stylized launcher with favorites, recent apps, and special commands (calc, clipboard).
• Side Panel: Quick access panel with media controls, weather, power profiles, and system utilities.
• Settings Panel: Comprehensive configuration interface for all shell components and preferences.
• Lock Screen: Secure lock experience with PAM authentication, time display, and animated background.
• Audio Integration: Volume controls, media playback, and audio visualizer (cava-based).
• Connectivity: WiFi and Bluetooth management with device pairing and network status.
• Power Management: Battery monitoring, brightness control, and power profile switching.
• System Monitoring: CPU, memory, and network usage monitoring with visual indicators.
• Tray System: Application tray with menu support and system integration.
• Background Management: Wallpaper management with effects and dynamic theming support.
• Color Schemes: Catppuccin, Dracula, Gruvbox, Noctalia, Nord, Rosépine, Solarized, Tokyo night or generated from your wallpaper.
• Scaling: Per monitor scaling for maximum control.

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Dependencies

Required

• quickshell-git - Core shell framework
• ttf-roboto - The default font used for most of the UI
• inter-font - The default font used for Headers (ex: clock on the LockScreen)
• ttf-material-symbols-variable-git - Icon font for UI elements
• xdg-desktop-portal-gnome - Desktop integration (or alternative portal)

Optional

• cliphist - For clipboard history support
• swww - Wallpaper animations and effects
• matugen - Material You color scheme generation
• cava - Audio visualizer component
• gpu-screen-recorder - Screen recording functionality
• brightnessctl - For internal/laptop monitor brightness
• ddcutil - For desktop monitor brightness (might introduce some system instability with certain monitors) If you want to use the ArchUpdater Widget, make sure you have any polkit agent installed.

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Quick Start

Installation

For Arch

# Install Quickshell
yay -S quickshell-git
# Download and install Noctalia (latest release)
mkdir -p ~/.config/quickshell && curl -sL https://github.com/noctalia-dev/noctalia-shell/releases/latest/download/noctalia-latest.tar.gz | tar -xz --strip-components=1 -C ~/.config/quickshell

For Nix

nix run github:noctalia-dev/noctalia-shell

For flakes

{
  description = "Example Nix flake with Noctalia + Quickshell";

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

    noctalia = {
      url = "github:noctalia-dev/noctalia-shell";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };

    quickshell = {
      url = "github:outfoxxed/quickshell";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, noctalia, quickshell, ... }:
  let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
    pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
  in {
    nixosConfigurations.my-host = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = system;
      modules = [
        ./configuration.nix
        # Add noctalia to system packages
        ({ pkgs, ... }: {
          environment.systemPackages = [
            noctalia.packages.${system}.default
            quickshell.packages.${system}.default
          ];
        })
      ];
    };
  };
}

Usage

| Action                      | Command                                   |
| --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| Start the Shell             | `qs`                                      |
| Toggle Application Launcher | `qs ipc call launcher toggle`             |
| Toggle Side Panel           | `qs ipc call sidePanel toggle`            |
| Open Clipboard History      | `qs ipc call launcher clipboard`          |
| Open Calculator             | `qs ipc call launcher calculator`         |
| Increase Brightness         | `qs ipc call brightness increase`         |
| Decrease Brightness         | `qs ipc call brightness decrease`         |
| Toggle Power Panel          | `qs ipc call powerPanel toggle`           |
| Toggle Idle Inhibitor       | `qs ipc call idleInhibitor toggle`        |
| Toggle Settings Window      | `qs ipc call settings toggle`             |
| Toggle Lock Screen          | `qs ipc call lockScreen toggle`           |
| Toggle Notification History | `qs ipc call notifications toggleHistory` |
### Configuration

Access settings through the side panel (top right button) to configure weather, wallpapers, screen recording, audio, network, and theme options.  
Configuration is usually stored in ~/.config/noctalia  
If you upgrade from v1, you can delete the old configuration folder at ~/.config/Noctalia (with capital N)  

### Application Launcher

The launcher supports special commands for enhanced functionality:
- `>calc` - Simple mathematical calculations
- `>clip` - Clipboard history management

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<details>
<summary><strong>Theme Colors</strong></summary>

| Color Role           | Color       | Description                |
| -------------------- | ----------- | -------------------------- |
| Primary              | `#c7a1d8`   | Soft lavender purple       |
| On Primary           | `#1a151f`   | Dark text on primary       |
| Secondary            | `#a984c4`   | Muted lavender             |
| On Secondary         | `#f3edf7`   | Light text on secondary    |
| Tertiary             | `#e0b7c9`   | Warm pink-lavender         |
| On Tertiary          | `#20161f`   | Dark text on tertiary      |
| Surface              | `#1c1822`   | Dark purple-tinted surface |
| On Surface           | `#e9e4f0`   | Light text on surface      |
| Surface Variant      | `#262130`   | Elevated surface variant   |
| On Surface Variant   | `#a79ab0`   | Muted text on surface variant |
| Error                | `#e9899d`   | Soft rose red              |
| On Error             | `#1e1418`   | Dark text on error         |
| Outline              | `#4d445a`   | Purple-tinted outline      |
| Shadow               | `#120f18`   | Deep purple-tinted shadow  |

</details>

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## Advanced Configuration

### Niri Configuration

Add this to your `layout` section for proper swww integration:

background-color "transparent"

### Recommended Compositor Settings

For Niri:

window-rule { geometry-corner-radius 20 clip-to-geometry true }

layer-rule { match namespace="^swww-daemon$" place-within-backdrop true }

layer-rule { match namespace="^quickshell-wallpaper$" }

layer-rule { match namespace="^quickshell-overview$" place-within-backdrop true }

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## Development

### Project Structure

Noctalia/ ├── shell.qml # Main shell entry point ├── Modules/ # UI components │ ├── Bar/ # Status bar components │ ├── Dock/ # Application launcher │ ├── SidePanel/ # Quick access panel │ ├── SettingsPanel/ # Configuration interface │ └── ... ├── Services/ # Backend services │ ├── CompositorService.qml │ ├── WorkspacesService.qml │ ├── AudioService.qml │ └── ... ├── Widgets/ # Reusable UI components ├── Commons/ # Shared utilities ├── Assets/ # Static assets └── Bin/ # Utility scripts

### Contributing

1. Follow the existing code style and patterns
2. Use the modular architecture for new features
3. Implement proper error handling and logging
4. Test with both Hyprland and Niri compositors (if applicable)

Contributions are welcome! Don't worry about being perfect - every contribution helps! Whether it's fixing a small bug, adding a new feature, or improving documentation, we welcome all contributions. Feel free to open an issue to discuss ideas or ask questions before diving in. For feature requests and ideas, you can also use our discussions page.

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## 💜 Credits

A heartfelt thank you to our incredible community of [**contributors**](https://github.com/noctalia-dev/noctalia-shell/graphs/contributors). We are immensely grateful for your dedicated participation and the constructive feedback you've provided, which continue to shape and improve our project for everyone.

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## Acknowledgment

Special thanks to the creators of [**Caelestia**](https://github.com/caelestia-dots/shell) and [**DankMaterialShell**](https://github.com/AvengeMedia/DankMaterialShell) for their inspirational designs and clever implementation techniques.

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#### Donation

While I actually didn't want to accept donations, more and more people are asking to donate so... I don't know, if you really feel like donating then I obviously highly appreciate it but **PLEASE** never feel forced to donate or anything. It won't change how we work on Noctalia, it's a project that we work on for fun in the end.

[![ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/img/githubbutton_sm.svg)](https://ko-fi.com/R6R01IX85B)

Thank you to everyone who supports me and this project 💜!
* Gohma
* <a href="https://pika-os.com/" target="_blank">PikaOS</a>

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## License

This project is licensed under the terms of the [MIT License](./LICENSE).