SeatShell

SeatShell is a Rust/Slint Wayland shell focused on a built-in SingleSeat Overview for managing local user sessions.

Version 1.0.0 uses labwc as the compositor backend. The shell UI starts as normal Slint windows, while the service layer exposes D-Bus interfaces for user-agent launch requests and read-only admin discovery.

Project Overview

SeatShell is not trying to beat GNOME or KDE at feature count. Its chance to become a memorable project is to be smaller, clearer, and more opinionated:

• a recognizable desktop shell with strong visual authorship
• a trustworthy local-session overview instead of a generic control center
• a keyboard-friendly launcher and daily workflow
• a session/runtime stack that is understandable to contributors

The current architecture is a compact Rust workspace:

• seatshell-session supervises the session lifecycle
• seatshell-shell renders the UI in Slint
• seatshell-user-agent launches apps in the user session
• seatshell-admin-daemon exposes read-only session discovery

For more detail, see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, ROADMAP.md, and CONTRIBUTING.md.

Version 1.0.0

This repository is at a first working release:

• Cargo workspace packages are versioned at 1.0.0.
• Shared config, session, protocol, and notification models build.
• Slint shell window renders a desktop surface, panel, launcher, and SingleSeat Overview.
• Desktop and launcher views expose clickable application rows with search/filter support, quick-launch picks, and recent-app recall.
• Launcher discovers .desktop files and launches parsed commands without brittle whitespace splitting.
• Launcher parses comment/category metadata so the shell can present richer desktop-friendly app cards.
• Overview is fed from runtime session data through the admin D-Bus service, with a local fallback for development.
• The running shell owns org.seatshell.Shell, so labwc hotkeys and menu actions control the existing shell instead of spawning extra overview/launcher windows.
• Configured panel position is applied, so panel.position = "top" moves the panel to the top edge.
• seatshell-user-agent registers launch and session-info D-Bus methods.
• seatshell-admin-daemon registers read-only ListUsers, ListSessions, and policy-group D-Bus methods.
• seatshell-session starts labwc, the admin daemon, the user agent, and the shell from colocated binaries or an installed prefix.
• Session logs are written under ~/.local/state/seatshell/logs by default.
• scripts/run-seatshell.sh now launches a standalone labwc-backed session by default and supports --windowed for nested desktop testing.
• labwc/session resources are checked in.

Development

cargo check
cargo run -p seatshell-shell
cargo run -p seatshell-session -- --dry-run
cargo run -p seatshell-session -- --dev-dry-run
cargo run -p seatshell-admin-daemon
cargo run -p seatshell-user-agent
cargo run -p seatshell-shell -- --windowed
scripts/run-seatshell.sh --dry-run

Contributor docs:

• CONTRIBUTING.md
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
• docs/TESTING.md
• docs/DESIGN.md
• docs/SECURITY.md

First Run

For a first pass on macOS, stay in the windowed shell path instead of trying to boot the full Wayland session:

cargo run -p seatshell-shell -- --windowed

That path is the best place to validate the shell UI on macOS:

• inspect the panel, desktop, launcher, overview, command surface, and notifications
• resize the window to catch spacing or clipping issues
• confirm launcher search, pinned apps, recents, and overview keyboard navigation still behave correctly

If Cargo fails during linking on macOS, accept the Xcode license first:

sudo xcodebuild -license

For the first real Linux session pass, use the session runner or nested script:

scripts/run-seatshell.sh --windowed
scripts/run-seatshell.sh

With a shell already running, control that process through D-Bus:

seatshell-shell --toggle-launcher
seatshell-shell --toggle-overview
seatshell-shell --show-desktop

Build and run the desktop shell from release binaries:

cargo build --workspace --release
scripts/run-seatshell.sh
scripts/run-seatshell.sh --windowed

Install the release binaries, application launchers, and SeatShell session file into ~/.local:

scripts/install-seatshell.sh

Install into a temporary or custom prefix for validation:

scripts/install-seatshell.sh --debug --prefix /tmp/seatshell-install
PREFIX=/tmp/seatshell-install scripts/validate-seathell-install.sh
PREFIX=/tmp/seatshell-install scripts/validate-display-manager-session.sh

The installer now generates:

• an absolute-path Wayland session file under share/wayland-sessions
• a seatshell-start launcher that exports SeatShell runtime/share paths
• a login-session path that can use dbus-run-session when needed
• a display-manager-friendly session entry with TryExec and LightDM desktop naming

To validate a real login-manager install on the host:

PREFIX=/usr/local scripts/validate-display-manager-session.sh --strict-host

That host validator detects the active display manager, checks whether seatshell.desktop is installed in a display-manager-visible Wayland session directory, validates the generated launcher, and runs it with --dry-run.

The default config is loaded from /etc/seatshell/config.toml, then ~/.config/seatshell/config.toml when those files exist. Missing files are fine; built-in defaults are used, and partial user config now layers cleanly over system defaults instead of replacing them wholesale.

Runtime state defaults to ~/.local/state/seatshell, with per-process logs under ~/.local/state/seatshell/logs. You can override those with SEATSHELL_STATE_DIR and SEATSHELL_LOG_DIR.

On macOS, Rust builds that link binaries require the Xcode license to be accepted first. If linking fails with an SDK/license error, run sudo xcodebuild -license in Terminal and then rerun the Cargo command.