A calm desktop,
capable underneath.
Lumen turns Hyprland into one coherent product: a Dynamic Island, a control centre and planner, an on-device assistant called Lumen Halo, a lock screen with Face ID, and a settings app, all from one design system.
One pill that tells you what just happened.
Music, notifications, volume, timers, downloads, recording, Caps Lock, new devices. It grows only as much as the moment needs, then settles back into a clock.
- touch_appHover to peek. Now playing with artwork glow, or what you're working on: git branch, changes, CPU and GPU.
- swipeScroll for volume, Shift+scroll for brightness, middle-click to play or pause, right-click for background apps.
- syncLong jobs report progress.
lumen run -- makeputs a live bar in the island and tells you when it's done.
The icon is the switch. The tile opens the list.
One control never does two things. Wi-Fi groups what you're on, what you've saved and what's nearby. Bluetooth finds nearby devices only while you're looking, and pairs them in one click.
- wifiWi-Fi: Connected · Saved · Other networks, a password field in place, and ⋯ for Disconnect or Forget. Ethernet is detected too.
- bluetooth_searchingBluetooth: your devices with battery levels, then Nearby. Click to pair; it's trusted, so it reconnects by itself.
- grid_viewSixteen toggles, per-app volume, now playing, live system stats and a calendar. Arrow keys work everywhere.
mouse Try it: click a tile to open its list, click the round icon to switch it.
Plug something in. The island knows what it is.
USB devices are recognised by type. The first time you connect a device you get a card with a “New” badge. Drives get Open and Eject, displays get Arrange. Devices you use every day get a quiet one-line note when they connect or disconnect, with their real name.
Your messages on the right, your day on the left.
Notifications group by app and swipe away. The planner holds weather, an agenda you write in plain language (“fri 7pm Concert”), to-dos and a notes pad that saves as you type.
Tap Super. Type what you mean.
Apps and windows, maths, settings, commands with parameters, timers, projects and your clipboard, ranked into groups as you type.
- terminalCommands that take values:
volume 40,brightness 70,open project lumen,kill slack. - bookmarkSnapshots:
save codingandrestore codingbring back a whole layout. - drag_panLive workspace previews. Drag a window onto another workspace to move it.
A clipboard that knows what you copied.
Links, emails, colours, paths, commands and code are recognised and filterable. Anything that looks like a secret is masked. Enter pastes straight into the app you were in.
- keyboardEnter pastes, Ctrl+Enter pastes plain, Shift+Enter opens a link, Alt+P pins.
- tabAlt+Tab shows live previews in the order you last used them. Alt+` cycles one app's windows.
Tell it what you're doing. It arranges the rest.
Each mode is a checklist you can read: what goes quiet, what dims, what stays awake. Deep work runs a 25/5 Pomodoro in the island; Game switches to performance; Sleep warms the screen. Work and Sleep can follow a schedule.
Hover the island. See what you're working on.
In an editor or terminal, the island shows the project, its git branch and changes, and live CPU, GPU and memory. In a game it shows frame-relevant stats; during a presentation it holds notifications and keeps the screen awake.
An assistant that lives in your desktop, and can stay on it.
Select an error and ask. Let it read your screen. Diagnose your system. Answers stream from a local model through Ollama, so nothing leaves your computer, or from Claude with your own key. It's off until you choose, and nothing is ever saved.
Lumen Halo
shield_lockLocal · gemma3:4bSuper+Shift+Space/explain /summarize /fix /translate /reply /cmd /diagnose /commit /define
Selection, clipboard, a screenshot, the active window, system health, or your project's git diff. Each is a chip you switch on.
Copy, insert into the app you came from, run a suggested command in a terminal (after you confirm it), or save it to your notes.
Local models via Ollama. Nothing is sent until you press Enter, and conversations exist only in memory.
/diagnose reads NetworkManager, failed services, recent errors, disk and memory, then explains what it found.
Close the panel mid-answer and the island shows Halo thinking; it tells you when the answer is ready.
A glance to unlock. Your password always works.
A big clock, now playing, battery and notification counts (never their content). Face ID through Gaze unlocks only the lock screen, never sudo or your keyring. Admin prompts are drawn by Lumen and say exactly what's asking.
- faceFace ID with liveness checks; on battery the camera starts only when you press F2.
- admin_panel_settingsPolkit agent built in. A clear card, the app's name, and the exact action.
- shieldSecurity page: firewall, SSH, Secure Boot, disk encryption and SELinux at a glance.
Twenty pages, grouped, searchable, and live.
Changes apply the moment you make them: to the shell, windows, terminal and lock screen. The Advanced page shows the config files, checks them, opens the logs and reloads everything.
Dolphin, Kate, Okular and friends match the desktop.
Lumen generates a KDE colour scheme, the Darkly style and your icon theme for Qt apps, so they look like part of the desktop. It applies only inside Lumen: Plasma and your own settings are left untouched.
Every colour is computed, and every combination passes contrast.
Colours are written in OKLCH, so light and dark themes keep the same contrast. Pick an accent from your wallpaper, choose how strongly it tints, and tune glass and motion. After sunset the accent warms and motion calms. Try it:
The island stretches. The bar fills with what matters now.
With windows open, the island becomes one floating Ribbon. Either side of it, chips appear only while they have something to say, and step aside when there isn't room.
- appsWindow strip: this workspace's windows after the app name; click to focus, middle-click to close.
- auto_awesome_motionShoulders: now playing, Focus or a timer, weather, your next event, a call on air, battery time left, a busy system, Halo.
- previewPeek: hover a window icon or a workspace dot for live previews with title, workspace, CPU and memory, and what it's playing.
It sings along, remembers the last hour, and knows when you're on a call.
Synced lyrics
The line being sung sits under the track; a Lyrics mode glides three lines as the song plays. From LRCLIB, only while the player is open.
The Now timeline
Scroll on the island to scrub the last hour: notifications with their actions, devices, screenshots, and what's coming up next.
Meeting mode
Mic or camera live in a call? Notifications are held, the screen stays awake, and an on-air chip leads the Ribbon until it ends.
Battery forecast
Learned from how you really use it: "Plug in within 40 min at this rate", and how long a charge usually lasts.
Lumen talks to WhatsApp. You still press Send.
Through your own WhatsApp Web session: messages grouped per chat in the island and Ribbon, quick reply with Super+Shift+W, "Send to WhatsApp" from anywhere, and Halo that drafts "tell Arya I'll send the build tonight".
- verified_userNever sends by itself. WhatsApp opens with your message filled in; you press Enter.
- lockPrivate: message text stays in memory, never on disk, never in global search. Halo reads it only if you allow it.
- hubAn inbox, not a hack: no reverse-engineered protocol; WhatsApp is the first provider of Lumen Inbox.
Drag a file to the edge. Decide what happens next.
A shelf slides out from the right edge: send to your phone or WhatsApp, copy, compress, open with, move to, ask Halo, or park it on the shelf for later.
- picture_as_pdfHalo reads files:
/pdfsummarises,/fileanswers questions, images when the model can see. - drive_file_rename_outline
/rename: sensible names as a checklist; nothing changes until Apply, and Undo puts them back.
Your phone, your backups, your keys, your money.
Lumen Link
Your phone via KDE Connect, even on hostel and campus Wi-Fi: connect by address, USB tethering or Bluetooth. Battery in the island, clipboard from your phone, ring it, send files and screenshots.
Backup & recovery
Snapshots of your folders to a USB drive that copy only what changed; restores never overwrite. lumen recovery works from a TTY: safe mode, settings restore, theme reset.
Every laptop key
Airplane, touchpad, keyboard light, display modes (extend, mirror, external or laptop only), calculator, performance, and a power button that asks instead of switching off.
Money in rupees
Tap Super and type $100, =50eur*2, 2 lakh / 12: answers in ₹ with Indian grouping (₹1,23,456.78) and a lakh/crore reading.
Your week
Screen time and focus hours in the planner: top apps, a 7-day chart, Pomodoro rounds. Stored on this machine only, and you can turn it off.
The little things, done properly.
Workspace snapshots
Save the windows you have open, where they are and what folder each terminal is in. Restore the whole setup later with one command.
saved 6 windows on 3 workspaces
❯ lumen snapshot restore coding
Lumen Link
Your phone, through KDE Connect: battery in the sidebar, ring it, send files, share the clipboard, and its notifications in the island.
Scriptable to the core
Everything Settings does is a command, and long jobs report to the island.
❯ lumen set glass_level 70
❯ lumen run --title Build -- make
# progress appears in the island
Everything is one shortcut away.
Press Super+/ for the full cheatsheet, generated from the config itself.
The whole tour, in real screenshots.
Click any picture to enlarge it. Arrow keys move between them; Esc closes.
A guided install that asks before every step.
Packages come from your distribution's own repositories: Fedora, Arch, Debian/Ubuntu and openSUSE. Fonts and the cursor are optional downloads from their official projects. Nothing is ever piped into a shell, and ./uninstall.sh removes it again.
❯ cd ~/Projects/lumen
❯ ./install.sh --dry-run # shows every step; changes nothing
❯ ./install.sh # asks before each step
Just curious? bin/lumen-session runs Lumen in a window inside your current Wayland desktop.