Owlry

A lightweight, owl-themed application launcher for Wayland, built with GTK4 and Layer Shell.

Features

• Modular plugin architecture — Install only what you need
• Fuzzy search with tags — Fast matching across names, descriptions, and category tags
• 13 native plugins — Calculator, clipboard, emoji, weather, media, and more
• Widget providers — Weather, media controls, and pomodoro timer at the top of results
• Filter prefixes — Scope searches with :app, :cmd, :tag:development, etc.
• Frecency ranking — Frequently/recently used items rank higher
• GTK4 theming — System theme by default, with 9 built-in themes
• Wayland native — Uses Layer Shell for proper overlay behavior
• Extensible — Create custom plugins in Lua or Rune

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

# Minimal core (applications + commands only)
yay -S owlry

# Add individual plugins
yay -S owlry-plugin-calculator owlry-plugin-weather

# Or install bundles:
yay -S owlry-meta-essentials  # calculator, system, ssh, scripts, bookmarks
yay -S owlry-meta-widgets     # weather, media, pomodoro
yay -S owlry-meta-tools       # clipboard, emoji, websearch, filesearch, systemd
yay -S owlry-meta-full        # everything

# For custom Lua/Rune plugins
yay -S owlry-lua   # Lua 5.4 runtime
yay -S owlry-rune  # Rune runtime

Available Packages

Package	Description
owlry	Core binary with applications and commands
owlry-plugin-calculator	Math expressions (= 5+3)
owlry-plugin-system	Shutdown, reboot, suspend, lock
owlry-plugin-ssh	SSH hosts from ~/.ssh/config
owlry-plugin-clipboard	History via cliphist
owlry-plugin-emoji	400+ searchable emoji
owlry-plugin-scripts	User scripts
owlry-plugin-bookmarks	Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Edge bookmarks
owlry-plugin-websearch	Web search (? query)
owlry-plugin-filesearch	File search (/ filename)
owlry-plugin-systemd	User services with actions
owlry-plugin-weather	Weather widget
owlry-plugin-media	MPRIS media controls
owlry-plugin-pomodoro	Pomodoro timer widget

Build from Source

Dependencies:

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libgtk4-layer-shell-dev

# Fedora
sudo dnf install gtk4-devel gtk4-layer-shell-devel

Build (requires Rust 1.90+):

git clone https://somegit.dev/Owlibou/owlry.git
cd owlry

# Build core only
cargo build --release -p owlry

# Build specific plugin
cargo build --release -p owlry-plugin-calculator

# Build everything
cargo build --release --workspace

Install plugins manually:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/lib/owlry/plugins
sudo cp target/release/libowlry_plugin_*.so /usr/lib/owlry/plugins/

Usage

owlry                      # Launch with defaults
owlry --mode app           # Applications only
owlry --providers app,cmd  # Specific providers
owlry --help               # Show all options

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Launch selected item
Escape	Close launcher / exit submenu
Up / Down	Navigate results
Tab	Cycle filter tabs
Shift+Tab	Cycle filter tabs (reverse)
Ctrl+1..9	Toggle tab by position

Search Prefixes

Prefix	Provider	Example
:app	Applications	:app firefox
:cmd	PATH commands	:cmd git
:sys	System actions	:sys shutdown
:ssh	SSH hosts	:ssh server
:clip	Clipboard	:clip password
:bm	Bookmarks	:bm github
:emoji	Emoji	:emoji heart
:script	Scripts	:script backup
:file	Files	:file config
:calc	Calculator	:calc sqrt(16)
:web	Web search	:web rust docs
:uuctl	systemd	:uuctl docker
:tag:X	Filter by tag	:tag:development

Trigger Prefixes

Trigger	Provider	Example
=	Calculator	= 5+3
calc	Calculator	calc sqrt(16)
?	Web search	? rust programming
web	Web search	web linux tips
/	File search	/ .bashrc
find	File search	find config

Configuration

Owlry follows the XDG Base Directory Specification:

Path	Purpose
~/.config/owlry/config.toml	Main configuration
~/.config/owlry/themes/*.css	Custom themes
~/.config/owlry/style.css	CSS overrides
~/.config/owlry/plugins/	User plugins (Lua/Rune)
~/.local/share/owlry/scripts/	User scripts
~/.local/share/owlry/frecency.json	Usage history

System locations:

Path	Purpose
/usr/lib/owlry/plugins/*.so	Installed native plugins
/usr/lib/owlry/runtimes/*.so	Lua/Rune script runtimes
/usr/share/doc/owlry/config.example.toml	Example configuration

Quick Start

# Copy example config
mkdir -p ~/.config/owlry
cp /usr/share/doc/owlry/config.example.toml ~/.config/owlry/config.toml

Example Configuration

[general]
show_icons = true
max_results = 10
tabs = ["app", "cmd", "uuctl"]
# terminal_command = "kitty"    # Auto-detected
# launch_wrapper = "uwsm app --" # Auto-detected

[appearance]
width = 850
height = 650
font_size = 14
border_radius = 12
# theme = "owl"  # Or: catppuccin-mocha, nord, dracula, etc.

[plugins]
disabled = []  # Plugin IDs to disable, e.g., ["emoji", "pomodoro"]

[providers]
applications = true    # .desktop files
commands = true        # PATH executables
frecency = true        # Boost frequently used items
frecency_weight = 0.3  # 0.0-1.0

# Web search engine: google, duckduckgo, bing, startpage, brave, ecosia
search_engine = "duckduckgo"

See /usr/share/doc/owlry/config.example.toml for all options with documentation.

Plugin System

Owlry uses a modular plugin architecture. Plugins are loaded from:

• /usr/lib/owlry/plugins/*.so — System plugins (AUR packages)
• ~/.config/owlry/plugins/ — User plugins (requires owlry-lua or owlry-rune)

Disabling Plugins

Add plugin IDs to the disabled list in your config:

[plugins]
disabled = ["emoji", "pomodoro"]

Creating Custom Plugins

See docs/PLUGIN_DEVELOPMENT.md for:

• Native plugin development (Rust)
• Lua plugin development
• Rune plugin development
• Available APIs

Theming

Built-in Themes

Theme	Description
owl	Dark theme with amber accents
catppuccin-mocha	Soothing pastel
nord	Arctic blue palette
rose-pine	Natural pine vibes
dracula	Dark vampire theme
gruvbox-dark	Retro groove
tokyo-night	Tokyo city lights
solarized-dark	Precision colors
one-dark	Atom's One Dark

[appearance]
theme = "catppuccin-mocha"

Custom Theme

Create ~/.config/owlry/themes/mytheme.css:

:root {
    --owlry-bg: #1e1e2e;
    --owlry-bg-secondary: #313244;
    --owlry-border: #45475a;
    --owlry-text: #cdd6f4;
    --owlry-text-secondary: #a6adc8;
    --owlry-accent: #f38ba8;
    --owlry-accent-bright: #f5c2e7;
}

CSS Variables

Variable	Description
--owlry-bg	Main background
--owlry-bg-secondary	Secondary surfaces
--owlry-border	Border color
--owlry-text	Primary text
--owlry-text-secondary	Muted text
--owlry-accent	Accent color
--owlry-accent-bright	Bright accent

Architecture

owlry (core)
├── Applications provider (XDG .desktop files)
├── Commands provider (PATH executables)
├── Dmenu provider (pipe compatibility)
└── Plugin loader
    ├── /usr/lib/owlry/plugins/*.so  (native plugins)
    ├── /usr/lib/owlry/runtimes/     (Lua/Rune runtimes)
    └── ~/.config/owlry/plugins/     (user plugins)

For detailed architecture information, see CLAUDE.md.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.

Acknowledgments

• GTK4 — UI toolkit
• gtk4-layer-shell — Wayland Layer Shell
• abi_stable — ABI-stable Rust plugins
• fuzzy-matcher — Fuzzy search