menu-kit

A modular, menu-agnostic launcher for Linux with plugin-first architecture.

Overview

menu-kit is a launcher/menu system that works with multiple menu backends (rofi, fuzzel, dmenu, fzf) while providing a unified plugin system. Everything is a plugin - file browsing, app launching, settings, search.

Status: Early development - architecture defined, implementation starting.

Features (Planned)

• Menu-agnostic - Works with rofi, fuzzel, dmenu, wofi, bemenu, fzf
• Plugin-first - Core features implemented as plugins
• Smart indexing - .gitignore aware file scanning
• SQLite backend - Fast queries, frequency tracking, incremental updates
• TOML config - Human-readable configuration
• Systemd integration - Background index rebuilding

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│         Core (Python 3.11+)         │
│  - Config (TOML)                    │
│  - Database (SQLite)                │
│  - Plugin loader                    │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐
│      Menu Abstraction Layer         │
│   (stdin/stdout dmenu protocol)     │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │
     ┌─────────┼─────────┐
     ▼         ▼         ▼
   rofi     fuzzel     dmenu

Built-in Plugins

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• One of: rofi, fuzzel, dmenu, fzf

Configuration

Config lives at ~/.config/menu-kit/config.toml:

[menu]
backend = "auto"  # auto-detect, or: rofi, fuzzel, dmenu, fzf
prompt = ">"
lines = 15

[indexing]
watch_folders = ["~/"]
ignore_patterns = [".git", "node_modules", "__pycache__"]
respect_gitignore = true

[plugins]
enabled = ["files", "apps", "settings", "calculator"]

Background

menu-kit is the spiritual successor to dmenu-extended, redesigned with:

• Menu-agnostic architecture (not tied to dmenu)
• Plugin-first design (everything is a plugin)
• Modern Python practices (type hints, dataclasses, SQLite)
• Better separation of concerns

Licence

MIT