Warning

Experimental, vibe coded software. Works on my machine, but I'm no Rust/Wayland dev.

> cyberdeck

A desktop shell for cyberpunks. Wayland-native, built for Niri, runs on any Linux distro.

Philosophy:

• streamlined - all you need, nothing you don't
• ergonomic - first-class keyboard support
• isomorphic - GUI, CLI & keybinding parity
• focused - stays out of your way
• turnkey - doesn't take weeks to config

Modules

Module	Description	Dependencies
calendar	Clock, weekly/monthly/yearly calendar navigation	—
window	Active window title	—
workspaces	Workspace indicators (hexagon toasts on switch)	—
system	CPU, memory, temperature, uptime	—
storage	Disk usage, alert when >80% full	—
notifications	Notification count, dismiss, clear	libnotify
outputs	Speaker volume & mute, device switching	wireplumber
inputs	Microphone volume & mute, denoise toggle	wireplumber, rnnoise
network	WiFi SSID/signal/IP, connect, scan	NetworkManager
bluetooth	Paired devices, connect/disconnect, scan	bluez
brightness	Screen brightness control	brightnessctl
media	MPRIS now playing, play/pause/skip	playerctl
session	Battery, suspend, shutdown, reboot, logout	upower
profiles	Power profiles (saver/balanced/performance)	power-profiles-daemon
weather	Temperature, humidity, conditions from wttr.in	curl
screenshot	Region or full-screen screenshot to clipboard	grim, slurp, wl-clipboard
recording	Screen recording with audio options	slurp, wl-screenrec
wallpaper	Wallpaper cycling via swww	swww
keyboard	Layout indicator, cycle layouts	swaymsg
clipboard	Clipboard history, paste, clear	wl-clipboard, cliphist
mounts	Removable device status	udisks2

Todo

• monitor management
• emoji module
• lockscreen
• greeter

Vision: all you need to work is Niri + Cyberdeck.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Niri compositor (hardcoded IPC for window/workspace/app-launch)
• Linux with systemd

Install (any distro)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ixxie/cyberdeck/main/install.sh | sh

This installs the binary, Phosphor icons, a systemd service, and a default config. Then:

deck init            # create ~/.config/cyberdeck/config.toml (if not already present)
# edit config.toml to enable modules, install their deps
systemctl --user enable --now cyberdeck

Install (NixOS)

Add cyberdeck to your flake inputs:

# flake.nix
{
  inputs.cyberdeck.url = "github:ixxie/cyberdeck";
}

Import the NixOS module and enable modules:

# configuration.nix
{ inputs, ... }: {
  imports = [ inputs.cyberdeck.nixosModules.default ];

  services.cyberdeck = {
    enable = true;
    settings = {
      font = "MonaspiceKr Nerd Font";
      layout = "pills";
      gap = 8;
    };
    mods = {
      calendar.enable = true;
      workspaces.enable = true;
      window.enable = true;
      network.enable = true;
      outputs.enable = true;
      inputs.enable = true;
      bluetooth.enable = true;
      brightness.enable = true;
      session.enable = true;
      system.enable = true;
      notifications.enable = true;
      media.enable = true;
      weather = {
        enable = true;
        location = "London";
      };
      storage.enable = true;
      screenshot.enable = true;
      recording.enable = true;
      wallpaper = {
        enable = true;
        dir = "~/Pictures/wallpapers";
      };
    };
  };
}

Rebuild your system and the bar will start automatically.

Keybinding

Add a toggle keybinding in your compositor config. For niri:

"Mod+Space".action.spawn = ["cyberdeck" "launcher"];

Configuration

For TOML config (non-NixOS), run deck init to generate a commented template at ~/.config/cyberdeck/config.toml.

Settings

[settings]
position = "top"              # top or bottom
font = "monospace"            # any monospace font
font-size = 14
layout = "pills"              # classic, floating, pills, or transparent
gap = 6                       # spacing between elements (px)
scale = 1.0                   # global UI scale
icon-weight = "light"         # regular, bold, thin, light, fill, or duotone

[settings.theme]
color = "#222222"
opacity = 0.8
radius = 6
padding = 6

[settings.theme.track]        # bar background overrides (omit for no track)
# opacity = 1.0

[settings.theme.pill]         # pill overrides
# radius = 8

[settings.monitors.DP-1]
scale = 0.8

Layouts

Layout	Description
classic	Solid bar attached to screen edge, no margin
floating	Solid bar with margin, rounded corners
pills	Transparent bar, solid floating pills (default)
transparent	Everything transparent

The gap parameter controls all visual spacing: margin, track padding, and inter-pill gaps.

Modules

Each module can define:

• icon — module icon shown in the breadcrumb when focused
• badges — named map of badges shown on the root bar (see below)
• widget — content shown when the module is focused
• hooks — trigger toasts or badge overrides on state changes
• key-hints — keyboard shortcuts shown on the right when focused
• type — set to "calendar", "bluetooth", "wallpaper", or "actions" for interactive modules with rich keyboard navigation

Badge system

Badges are the icons/text shown on the root bar for each module. Each module can define multiple named badges:

badges = {
  # Always-visible badge (no condition)
  battery = {
    template = "{{ battery_pct }}%";
  };
  # Alert badge (only shown when condition is true)
  low-battery = {
    template = "{{ \"battery-warning\" | icon }} LOW";
    condition = "{{ battery_pct < 20 }}";
    highlight = "{{ \"battery-warning\" | icon }} {{ battery_pct }}%";
  };
};

• Badge — always visible on the root bar (no condition)
• Alert badge — only appears when its condition template evaluates truthy

Each badge has:

• template — Tera template for the badge content
• condition (optional) — if present, badge only shows when this renders truthy
• highlight (optional) — alternative template used when a hook forces the badge visible
• icon-scale (optional) — scale multiplier for icons within this badge

Hooks

Hooks trigger actions when module state changes:

hooks = [
  {
    condition = "{{ changed(key=\"muted\") and muted }}";
    action = "show-badge:muted";  # force-show a specific badge
    timeout = 3;
  }
  {
    condition = "{{ changed(key=\"volume\") }}";
    action = "toast";  # show a transient notification
    timeout = 3;
  }
];

Hook actions:

• "toast" — show a transient message on the left of the bar
• "show-badge:<badge-name>" — force-show a specific badge temporarily (overrides condition)
• Any other string — executed as a shell command

IPC

The bar exposes a Unix socket at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/cyberdeck.sock. Commands:

cyberdeck launcher            # toggle the launcher
cyberdeck <module> <action>   # run a module action
cyberdeck <module> open       # navigate to a module
cyberdeck state               # get current navigation state
cyberdeck dismiss             # reset to root

Use cyberdeck <module> <action> in compositor keybindings for volume/brightness control with instant feedback.

Developing

Source layout

src/
  main.rs       — entry point, CLI parsing, event loop
  bar.rs        — Wayland integration, BarApp struct, delegates
  nav.rs        — navigation state machine, input handling
  view.rs       — layout composition, text search
  config.rs     — configuration schema (JSON deserialization)
  source.rs     — data source management (poll, subscribe, file, native)
  template.rs   — Tera template engine, filters, functions
  layout.rs     — flex layout engine, hit area tracking
  render.rs     — text rendering (cosmic-text), icon compositing
  icons.rs      — SVG icon loading (Phosphor icons)
  ipc.rs        — Unix socket IPC protocol
  color.rs      — RGBA color type
  mods/
    mod.rs      — InteractiveModule trait, native source registry
    calendar.rs — clock + calendar navigation
    launcher.rs — desktop application scanner
    wallpaper.rs — wallpaper management via swww
    ...         — audio, bluetooth, system, etc.

Key concepts

• Module (ModuleDef) — a data source + display configuration. Defined in bar.modules.
• Badge (BadgeDef) — a small status element on the root bar. Each module can have multiple named badges.
• Widget (WidgetDef) — expanded content shown when a module is focused.
• InteractiveModule — trait for modules with rich keyboard-driven navigation (calendar, bluetooth, wallpaper, actions).
• Source — how a module gets data: poll (periodic command), subscribe (streaming), file (JSON files), or native (Rust implementation).
• Toast — transient notification shown on the left of the bar.

Data flow

1. Sources poll/stream data in background threads
2. JSON updates sent to main thread via calloop channels
3. process_hooks() evaluates hook conditions on state changes
4. maybe_redraw() renders all bar instances via the template engine
5. Tera templates produce text + icon sequences
6. Flex layout positions three groups (left, center, right)
7. Renderer shapes text (cosmic-text) and composites icons (tiny-skia)
8. Output copied to Wayland shared memory buffer

Building

# NixOS
nix build            # build the package
nix develop          # dev shell with cargo, rust-analyzer

# Other distros (needs wayland, xkbcommon, fontconfig, freetype dev headers)
cargo build --release

License

MIT