Nova

A Wayland desktop shell built with Quickshell.

Requirements

Tier	Dependencies	Notes
Core shell	Quickshell, Niri, JetBrainsMono Nerd Font, bash/coreutils/findutils, DBus, GLib, grim, ImageMagick, NetworkManager, PulseAudio tools, swaybg, systemd, util-linux, iproute2, GNU sed, wf-recorder, wl-clipboard, xdg-utils	Shipped by the base nova flake package.
Calculator	libqalculate	Included in packages.withCalculator and the dev app. Without it, calculator search results show an install hint.
AI usage pill	python3	Included in packages.withAiUsage and packages.full. Required only for src/scripts/ai-usage.py; the pill collapses if aiUsageMetrics.enabled is false or the collector cannot run.
Voice typing	voxtype on PATH	Optional external tool; Nova reports availability in the voice typing UI.

Configuration

User config lives at ~/.config/nova/config.json and is created automatically on first run from the defaults in src/config.json.

Nova scales UI metrics from logical output height against a 1440p baseline, clamped between 1.0x and 1.15x so 1080p and 1440p outputs keep the same base size while larger outputs get only a modest correction. ui.scale is a global multiplier, and outputScales is an optional per-monitor multiplier keyed by the output name already used by notifications.screen:

{
  "ui": {
    "scale": 1,
    "outputScales": {
      "DP-2": 1.15
    }
  }
}

Launcher web search opens a configured URL template with the encoded query. The default is Startpage:

{
  "launcher": {
    "webSearchUrlTemplate": "https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?query={query}"
  }
}

Use {query} or %s as the encoded search-term placeholder.

Quick Notes

Run nova notes from a compositor keybinding, for example Super+N, to toggle the right-edge quick notepad. Draft tabs are autosaved immediately under ~/Documents/Notes/.drafts and named notes are saved as plain text files in ~/Documents/Notes by default.

Override the storage directory in ~/.config/nova/config.json:

{
  "paths": {
    "notes": "$HOME/Documents/Notes"
  }
}

The editor is plain text, so pasting rich content into it strips formatting before you copy it back out.

AI Usage Metrics

The bar includes a pill that shows live usage for Claude Code, Codex, and OpenRouter. Each tool reads credentials from its own tool's standard location — no manual key setup required as long as you're already logged in to each tool.

Tool	Credential source	How it gets there
Claude Code	~/.claude/.credentials.json	Created automatically when you authenticate with claude CLI (claude login)
Codex	~/.codex/auth.json	Created automatically when you log in with the codex CLI (codex auth login)
OpenRouter	~/.local/share/opencode/auth.json	Created by opencode when you connect your OpenRouter account

Disabling the feature

Set enabled to false in ~/.config/nova/config.json:

{
  "aiUsageMetrics": {
    "enabled": false
  }
}

Then reload Nova. The pill will collapse and background polling will stop.