# dunst

The notifier as a module (novox/hq ADR 0208, research 026/05).

- Installs `dunst`, and `libnotify` for `notify-send`, the client every program and these tools use.
- Claims the mesh's `node-notifier` seat and serves its verbs `send` and `history`.
- Owns `~/.config/dunst/dunstrc` and the directory `~/.config/dunst/dunstrc.d/`. Another module's
  rule is that module's own file in the directory (ADR 0208 §4). dunst reads the directory after
  `dunstrc`, so a drop-in outranks it.
- **Starts nothing.** The package registers dunst with D-Bus, which starts it on the first
  notification, inside the account's service manager. There is no autostart line, no unit and no
  session-start contribution.
- **Requires no display of its own.** dunst speaks both X11 and Wayland and picks the one the session
  has, so it serves an X session and a later sway one alike.

## Tools

Every tool goes over the account's session bus. None needs the screen, and each answers clearly when
the account is not logged in.

| tool | does |
|---|---|
| `node-notifier.send` | a notification: title, body, urgency, sender, icon, how long; answers its id |
| `node-notifier.history` | what was shown, newest first, with how long ago |
| `dunst_pause` / `dunst_resume` | do not disturb: notifications are held back, not lost |
| `dunst_close_all` | clear the screen; the history keeps them |
| `dunst_rules` | the rules the running notifier holds, and the files they come from |
| `dunst_count` | shown, waiting, in history, and whether paused |

## What it chose, and what it improves

The workstations' files differed: one had the notifications bottom-right, 15 % transparent and with
rounded corners; the other top-right, opaque and square. This module takes the second, because the
rest of the desktop is square and opaque, and the top-right corner sits under the bar that shows the
count. The file keeps only the settings that differ from dunst's defaults.

- **The context menu works.** It called `/usr/bin/dmenu`, installed on neither machine. It now calls
  `dmenu`, the seat command of whichever module holds `node-launcher` (`rofi` on the workstations).
- **The face is the interface one,** Inter (research 026/04), instead of a monospace Nerd font.
- `icon_path`, which named two directories of an icon theme that is not installed, is gone. The icon
  theme is looked up recursively.

## What it leaves as found

- `~/.config/dunst/dunstrc.d/50-slack.conf`, the Slack rule. It becomes the Slack module's own drop-in
  when there is one, and until then it is the operator's file in a directory this module owns.

## Migration (ADR 0182)

- The first push keeps the found `dunstrc` once, then writes the module's.
- **The desktop runs two notification daemons** because its session began before the session bus
  fix (research 026/01). That ends at the next login, and nothing here starts a second one.
  `dunst_count` after logging in again shows the one daemon's counts.

## Blockers

- `node-notifier` is ADR 0208's seat. Until the controller knows it, `mctl` reads the claim as
  unknown.
- `dunst_rules` and the counts ask the running notifier. When none runs, the bus starts one, which
  needs a session to draw on.