mesh-catalog/modules/dunst/README.md

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.

Answers from a notification

send with actions runs notify-send --wait with one --action per answer, answers the id at once and waits in this bundle for the operator's choice (dunst offers the actions on a middle click, or in its context menu). The token chosen is said as this module's event action-chosen; it becomes the node-notifier seat's event once seats publish events of their own (novox/hq to-be 46 phase 3). Nothing is said for a notification closed, expired or replaced without an answer, and a wait ends after seven days. A restart of this bundle ends the waits it held: the notification stays shown, and its answers do nothing then (novox/hq ADR 0253).

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, and the answers it offers (actions: token and label); answers its id, and says the chosen answer later as the event action-chosen {id, token, machine}
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.