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luckys1nghh/chillpill-shell

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

38QMLAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A lightweight, GPU-friendly status bar and control panel for Hyprland Linux desktops, built with Quickshell.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((ChillPill-Shell))
    What it does
      Pill shaped status bar
      Control center panel
      Clipboard history
      Mini dashboard
    Tech stack
      QML
      Quickshell
      Hyprland
      Wayland
    Use cases
      Low power status bar
      Notification management
      Quick system controls
    Requirements
      Arch Linux tested
      No dedicated GPU needed
      Extra CLI dependencies

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Replace a heavier status bar with a lightweight pill-shaped bar on a low-power Hyprland Linux laptop.

USE CASE 2

Manage wifi, notifications, volume, and brightness from a single control center panel.

USE CASE 3

Search and reuse clipboard history with image previews directly from the shell.

What is it built with?

QMLQuickshellHyprlandWayland

How does it compare?

luckys1nghh/chillpill-shelloowl/kstatsbjarneo/omarchy-quickapps
Stars383844
LanguageQMLQMLQML
Setup difficultymoderateeasymoderate
Complexity3/52/52/5
Audiencegeneralops devopsdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Officially tested only on Arch Linux with Hyprland, needs several extra CLI dependencies installed first.

You can use and modify this freely, but if you distribute a modified version you must also share its source code under the same license.

In plain English

ChillPill Shell is a lightweight status bar and control panel for the Hyprland window manager on Linux, built with a tool called Quickshell. It is designed specifically for computers without a dedicated graphics card, so it aims to look good and stay useful without demanding much from your hardware. On the author's own older laptop, it typically uses a few hundred megabytes of memory and only a small percentage of CPU and graphics power while sitting idle. The bar takes the shape of a pill and appears at the top of your screen, showing things like battery level, volume, your open workspaces, wifi status, and the clock, and it expands wider when you hover over it. Clicking it opens a control center with media playback controls, buttons for wifi, silent notifications, and a timer, along with sliders for volume and brightness and a stack of your recent notifications. There is also a clipboard history feature that lets you search past items and preview images you have copied, and a small dashboard showing your profile picture, computer name, uptime, network usage, the date and time, weather, and a calendar, plus buttons to lock, sleep, shut down, or restart your computer. Notifications appear directly through this shell rather than needing separate notification software, and they can slide in gently while you are watching a video or playing a game in full screen. Many settings, such as the clock format, font choices, and weather location, can be changed in a configuration file. This is an early, initial release that has only been tested on Arch Linux running Hyprland, other Linux setups are not officially supported yet, though the required packages are commonly available under different names on other distributions. Installing it involves cloning the repository and running an included install script. It depends on a handful of other small open source tools for things like clipboard history and screen brightness control. The project is released under the GPL version 3 license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Install ChillPill-Shell on my Arch Linux Hyprland setup using the included install script.
Prompt 2
Customize ChillPill-Shell's config.jsonc to change the clock format and weather location.
Prompt 3
Add a keybinding in my Hyprland config to toggle ChillPill-Shell's control center and clipboard history.
Prompt 4
List the dependencies ChillPill-Shell needs on Arch Linux before running the install script.

Frequently asked questions

What is chillpill-shell?

A lightweight, GPU-friendly status bar and control panel for Hyprland Linux desktops, built with Quickshell.

What language is chillpill-shell written in?

Mainly QML. The stack also includes QML, Quickshell, Hyprland.

What license does chillpill-shell use?

You can use and modify this freely, but if you distribute a modified version you must also share its source code under the same license.

How hard is chillpill-shell to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is chillpill-shell for?

Mainly general.

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