It includes a configurable top bar, launcher, notifications daemon + sidebar, wallpaper and dynamic color pipeline, lock screen, OSD widgets, dashboard, dock, desktop icons, and a separate greetd-compatible greeter.

Highlights

Multi-window shell layout driven by Drawers/Windows.qml and panel/interactions wrappers
Configurable bar entries and popouts (audio, tray, network, power, resources, clock, active window)
Launcher with app DB frequency tracking, action commands, fuzzy search modes, and wallpaper/scheme flows
Notification server with persistence (~/.local/state/zshell/notifs.json) and sidebar UI
Dynamic Material 3 palette generation from wallpaper, optional template rendering, terminal sequence application
Lock module with PAM support, idle monitors, optional fingerprint integration, and blur background generation
Additional modules: dock, desktop icons, dashboard, OSD, polkit agent, area picker/screenshot flow

Project Layout

.
├── shell.qml              # Main shell entry point (qs config: zshell)
├── Drawers/               # Window, panel, interaction composition
├── Modules/               # UI/feature modules (bar, launcher, lock, notifs, settings, etc.)
├── Config/                # JSON-backed config schema + serializers
├── Daemons/               # Notification/audio/network daemons
├── Helpers/               # Shared runtime helpers and integration glue
├── Paths/                 # Runtime paths (XDG + state/cache/data locations)
├── Plugins/ZShell/        # Native Qt/QML plugin (C++)
├── Greeter/               # Separate Quickshell greeter app and scripts
├── cli/                   # Python CLI (`zshell-cli`)
└── scripts/               # Utility scripts (greeter prep, updates, fuzzy helpers)

Runtime Requirements

Core requirements:

Qt6 + Quickshell
Hyprland (Wayland session integration)
Python 3 for scheme/wallpaper tooling

Used by major features (install as needed for your setup):

app2unit (launcher app execution)
nmcli (network integration)
brightnessctl, ddcutil (brightness controls)
wl-copy, swappy (picker/screenshot flow)
libqalculate (launcher calculator)
PipeWire + audio stack + aubio/cava paths for media visualization
gsettings (optional GTK dark/light mode sync)

Build and Install

CMake (manual)

cmake -B build -G Ninja
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

Defaults from CMakeLists.txt:

ENABLE_MODULES="plugin;shell"
QML plugin install dir: usr/lib/qt6/qml
shell config install dir: etc/xdg/quickshell/zshell
greeter install dir: etc/xdg/quickshell/zshell-greeter

Nix Flake

The flake exposes:

packages.<system>.zshell
packages.<system>.zshell-cli

Add it as an input in your system flake:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    z-bar-qt = {
      url = git+https://git.zach-dev.cc/zach/z-bar-qt.git
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };
}

Full flake.nix example (nixosConfigurations):

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    z-bar-qt = {
      url = git+https://git.zach-dev.cc/zach/z-bar-qt.git
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = inputs@{ nixpkgs, ... }:
  let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
  in {
    nixosConfigurations.my-host = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      inherit system;
      specialArgs = { inherit inputs; };
      modules = [
        ({ ... }: {
          environment.systemPackages = [
            inputs.z-bar-qt.packages.${system}.zshell
            inputs.z-bar-qt.packages.${system}.zshell-cli
          ];
        })
        ./configuration.nix
      ];
    };
  };
}

Then install shell + CLI from the flake packages:

{ pkgs, inputs, ... }:
let
  system = pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system;
in {
  environment.systemPackages = [
    inputs.z-bar-qt.packages.${system}.zshell
    inputs.z-bar-qt.packages.${system}.zshell-cli
  ];
}

If you use Home Manager, the same packages can be added to home.packages.

Run shell via wrapper binary:

zshell

CLI entrypoint:

zshell-cli

Running

Start shell directly with Quickshell config name: qs -c zshell
Start through CLI helper: zshell-cli shell start
Lock through IPC helper: zshell-cli shell lock

Configuration

Primary config file:

~/.config/zshell/config.json

Important state/cache files:

~/.local/state/zshell/scheme.json
~/.local/state/zshell/wallpaper_path.json
~/.local/state/zshell/notifs.json
~/.local/state/zshell/apps.sqlite
~/.cache/zshell/

Config is hot-reloaded and saved through Config/Config.qml serializers. Top-level sections include:

general
appearance
background
barConfig
launcher
services
notifs
sidebar
utilities
dashboard
osd
colors
dock

Launcher Prefixes

Default prefixes are defined in Config/Launcher.qml:

actionPrefix: >
specialPrefix: @

Special app-search filters (@ prefix by default):

@i app id/name
@c categories
@d description/comment
@e exec string
@w WM class
@g generic name
@k keywords
@t terminal-only apps

Action-driven flows (> prefix by default) include calculator, wallpaper picker, and scheme variant selection.

CLI Commands

zshell-cli provides these subcommands:

shell - start/kill/log/IPC calls
screenshot - open area picker (start, start-freeze)
wallpaper - set wallpaper + generate lockscreen blur image
scheme - generate and apply dynamic/preset color schemes

Note: cli/src/zshell/subcommands/scheme.py uses Jinja2 templating for ~/.config/zshell/templates rendering.

Greeter

The repository ships a separate greeter shell under Greeter/ designed for greetd + Hyprland.

Greeter shell entry: Greeter/shell.qml
Default greeter config path: /etc/zshell-greeter/config.json
Startup script: Greeter/scripts/start-zshell-greeter
Helper installer script: scripts/prepare-greeter.sh

Known Caveats

Modules/Launcher/Services/Apps.qml references assets/wrap_term_launch.sh; ensure this script exists in your deployment.
cli/pyproject.toml currently does not list jinja2, but scheme.py imports it.
Some scheme variant naming paths may differ between UI values and CLI expectations (tonalSpot vs tonal-spot, etc.).

Inspiration

License

See LICENSE.

Languages

QML 73.5%

C++ 15.4%

JavaScript 7.3%

Python 2%

GLSL 0.8%

Other 1%