hello-robot-stretch4-tray 2026.7.8

Ubuntu system tray for displaying battery level and providing a system tray menu for launching Stretch tools or help resources.

Overview

stretch4_tray is an Ubuntu system tray application for displaying battery level and providing a system tray menu for launching Stretch tools or help resources. This package can be installed by:

python3 -m pip install -U hello-robot-stretch4-tray
stretch_tray --install # Installs the linux service to automatically start the tray
stretch_tray --restart # Immediately start the tray

If you do not want to use the linux service, you can just run stretch_tray.

Developing

To develop on this package:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install pkg-config libcairo-dev gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1 libgirepository-2.0-dev

git clone https://github.com/hello-robot/stretch4_tray
cd stretch4_tray

uv venv --system-site-packages --no-managed-python
uv pip install -e .

Managing stretch4_tray Service (Recommended)

The easiest way to run stretch4_tray is as a linux systemd user service.

To install and start the service:

stretch_tray --install

Other available management commands:

• stretch_tray --status: Check if the service is running and view recent logs
• stretch_tray --restart: Restart the service
• stretch_tray --uninstall: Stop and remove the service, and uninstall the Python package
• stretch_tray --kill: Forcefully stop the service and any dangling processes

To view continuous logs:

journalctl --user -u stretch_tray.service -f

Configuration

On the first run, stretch_tray creates a user-editable configuration file at: $HELLO_FLEET_PATH/$HELLO_FLEET_ID/stretch_tray.yaml

By default, this is a copy of the built-in configuration. You can modify this file to add, remove, or change the tools that appear in the tray and the GUI.

If you want to reset your configuration to the default:

stretch_tray --factory_reset

Edit scripts list

To edit the scripts list that shows up in both the system tray and the GUI, please do the following:

1. Edit your user configuration file at $HELLO_FLEET_PATH/$HELLO_FLEET_ID/stretch_tray.yaml
2. Add or modify commands to match the ScriptsConfig data model schema.
   • Please reference the docstrings in ScriptsConfig for details on each field.
3. Restart the tray: stretch_tray --restart