A high-performance, deeply customizable Wayland shell built with Quickshell.

Forked from Ambxst — less is more.

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Screenshots

  

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Installation

curl -sL https://github.com/Leriart/NothingLess/raw/main/install.sh | sh

Or clone manually:

git clone https://github.com/Leriart/NothingLess.git ~/.local/src/nothingless
sudo ln -s ~/.local/src/nothingless/cli.sh /usr/local/bin/nothingless

Then run:

nothingless

Compositor integration

nothingless install hyprland           # Auto-detect (default: conf)
nothingless install hyprland --conf    # Force config file mode (safe default)
nothingless install hyprland --lua     # Force Lua mode (Hyprland >= 0.48)
nothingless remove hyprland            # Remove NothingLess config from Hyprland

Mode selection:

• --conf (default): Creates ~/.local/share/nothingless/hyprland.conf and adds source = ~/.local/share/nothingless/hyprland.conf to your Hyprland config. Works on all Hyprland versions.
• --lua: Creates ~/.local/share/nothingless/hyprland.lua as valid Lua and adds loadfile(...)() to your Hyprland config. Requires Hyprland >= 0.48.
• No flag: Auto-detects based on existing config (hyprland.lua → lua, hyprland.conf → conf). If neither exists, defaults to --conf.

On first boot, exec-once = nothingless launches the shell, which starts the axctl daemon internally. All compositor settings are managed by axctl (live via raw-batch, persisted via axctl.toml).

Supported on Arch, Fedora, and NixOS (requires Hyprland).

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Commands

CLI

nothingless                          # Start NothingLess shell
nothingless update                   # Update NothingLess
nothingless reload                   # Reload NothingLess
nothingless quit                     # Quit NothingLess
nothingless lock                     # Activate lockscreen
nothingless run <command>            # Run a NothingLess module
nothingless brightness <0-100>       # Set brightness
nothingless brightness +/-<delta>    # Adjust brightness
nothingless brightness -s            # Save current brightness
nothingless brightness -r            # Restore saved brightness
nothingless screen on|off            # Control display power
nothingless suspend                  # Suspend system

Module Commands

nothingless run ...	Description
launcher	Open app launcher
dashboard	Open dashboard
assistant	Open AI assistant
clipboard	Open clipboard manager
emoji	Open emoji picker
notes	Open notes
tmux	Open tmux session manager
wallpapers	Open wallpaper picker
overview	Open workspace overview
powermenu	Open power menu
tools	Open tools menu
config	Open settings
screenshot	Take screenshot
screenrecord	Screen record
lens	Open OCR capture
toggle-metrics	Toggle notch metrics display
lockscreen	Lock session

Keybinds

Key	Action
SUPER (hold)	Launcher
SUPER + D	Dashboard
SUPER + A	Assistant
SUPER + V	Clipboard
SUPER + PERIOD	Emoji picker
SUPER + N	Notes
SUPER + T	Tmux
SUPER + COMMA	Wallpapers
SUPER + TAB	Workspace overview
SUPER + ESC	Power menu
SUPER + S	Tools menu
SUPER + SHIFT + C	Settings
SUPER + SHIFT + S	Screenshot
SUPER + SHIFT + R	Screen record
SUPER + SHIFT + A	Lens
SUPER + L	Lock session
SUPER + SHIFT + BACKSPACE	Toggle metrics overlay

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FPS Monitoring (nothing-fps)

NothingLess includes a modified MangoHud that captures FPS data and displays it in the notch metrics overlay.

# Launch a game with FPS monitoring
nothing-fps ./my-game

# Steam launch options (right-click game > Properties > Launch Options)
nothing-fps %command%

How it works:

1. nothing-fps sets up a modified MangoHud (libMangoHud_shim.so) via LD_PRELOAD
2. MangoHud hooks Vulkan/OpenGL to capture frame-present events
3. Calculated FPS is written to /dev/shm/nothingless_fps
4. NothingLess reads this file in real-time and displays FPS in the notch

Rebuilding MangoHud from source:

./scripts/mangohud-patch/build-mangohud.sh

Requires: meson, ninja, gcc, glslang, python-mako.

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Differences from Ambxst

Architecture

Area	Ambxst	NothingLess
Compositor settings	~40 options (border, shadow, blur)	130+ options across 11 categories
Config reload handling	Basic	configreloaded event detection with instant bind/settings recovery

Performance

Area	Ambxst	NothingLess
Video wallpaper	mpv-based	QtMultimedia + FFmpeg (hardware-accelerated, lower overhead)
Rendering backend	Default	Configurable: OpenGL (default) or Vulkan with threaded render loop
GPU optimization	Standard	NVIDIA env vars, GPU texture caching (GradientCache)
GLSL shaders	Original set	Optimized (reduced draw calls, shared GPU textures)
FPS monitoring	Not available	Custom MangoHud integration with real-time notch display

Design

Area	Ambxst	NothingLess
Typography	Roboto, varied	Ndot (dot-matrix), monospace-first
Color scheme	Vibrant themes	Monochrome with subtle red accents
Animations	Heavy, ornate	Minimal, functional
Branding	Color glyphs	Red + white dot-matrix

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Credits

• Leriart -- fork maintainer and NothingLess developer
• Axenide -- original Ambxst creator
• Zack (@zackytodearena) -- logo & animation design
• outfoxxed -- creator of Quickshell
• end-4 -- inspiration from dots-hyprland
• DankMaterialShell -- design reference from DMS
• Noctalia -- reference from noctalia-shell

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License

• NothingLess modifications are provided under the same license as the upstream.
• Ambxst and the Ambxst logo are trademarks of Adriano Tisera (Axenide).
• See LICENSE and TRADEMARK.md for details.