# rice cooker: a visual browser for Hyprland rices that only swaps quickshell config > rice cooker is an Electron app for browsing community desktop setups, previewing one live on your own screen, and installing it with a keystroke. Its scope is narrow by design: Arch, Hyprland, and quickshell rices only. **amarsbar/rice-cooker** — a visual (toy) tool for ricing - Repository: https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker - Stars: 744 · Forks: 6 - Language: TypeScript - License: BSD-3-Clause - Published: 2026-10-21 · Updated: 2026-10-21 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/amarsbar-rice-cooker ## A catalog browser, not a dotfiles manager rice cooker describes itself in the README as a visual, and deliberately toy, tool for ricing hyprland. The workflow it proposes is browse, try, install: you look through rices shared by the community, try one live on your own desktop, and install it with a keyboard click. The important boundary is stated early. The README says rice cooker only points quickshell at your selected rice, that it does not overwrite your existing files or directories, and that it does not modify your dotfiles. That is a much smaller promise than a dotfiles manager makes, and it is also the thing that makes the tool safe to experiment with, since applying a rice is a matter of changing which configuration quickshell loads rather than rewriting the files underneath it. The project credits itself as made for fun by two brothers at butterfly, and the version line is still at 0.1.x. ## Two modes, and the preview is the point The user guide describes two modes. Browse mode, the expanded view, is where you explore the catalog, and it carries the menu, close, sound, theme and HUD elements: a menu reached with ESC that offers revert, submit a rice and credits, a toggle for sound, a switch between three colour themes, and a heads-up display giving context such as the rice name, the rice number and which keys you are pressing. Preview mode is the mini view, and selecting a rice drops you into it. Selecting shows a live preview on your actual desktop, and during preview the window collapses to give the rice room to breathe. The preview mode adds an antenna that extends while content is downloading, a leave action that exits preview and reverts to your original rice, an install action, and a dot action that opens the rice's dotfiles on GitHub. Preview and install times depend on the size of the rice, and you may be prompted for a password when installing dependencies. ## revert is the safety net, and it is a menu item Because a rice replaces what is on your screen, the app needs a way back, and the README describes revert as returning you to the original rice you started with. It lives in the browse mode menu under ESC, and it is confirmed by holding the enter key rather than a single tap, which is the right pattern for a destructive-looking action that is only one keystroke away. The leave action in preview mode does the same thing, exiting the preview and reverting. Together these mean the worst case in normal use is that you looked at something you did not like and moved on. What the README does not describe is what happens if a rice itself breaks your session badly enough that the app cannot draw, or how the app behaves if quickshell is not installed at all. The boot screen rejects unsupported setups and forcible entry is possible, but the README calls that rice at your own risk. ## The support matrix is one line long: Arch, Hyprland, quickshell rices The README's notice section is blunt about it. rice cooker currently only works on arch plus hyprland, and it only contains quickshell rices, so any non-quickshell rice has to be closed before using the app. The boot screen automatically rejects non-supported setups. Two details follow from the quickshell-only constraint. First, the tool is not a general desktop theming utility; it is a front end for a specific shell format, so a wallpaper and layout collection that happens to be a Hyprland config without a quickshell piece is out of scope. Second, the community catalog is built from dotfiles openly shared by the community, and every submission is reviewed before it lands in the catalog, which is a curation model rather than a package index. Submissions go through a linked form, and the README asks for rices that are organized and complete. ## Installing from the AUR and what the package actually contains Installation is a single AUR command, since the tool targets Arch users. ```bash yay -S rice-cooker # or paru ``` The repository itself is an Electron and React application with a Rust backend, and the package manifest shows how it is put together. The dev script builds the Rust backend with cargo through backend/Cargo.toml and then starts electron-vite in development mode, the build script runs electron-vite build, and there is a preview script. The runtime dependencies are small, framer-motion for animation plus react and react-dom, while Electron, electron-vite, Vite, TypeScript and the SVGR plugin live in devDependencies. The manifest requires Node 20.0.0 or newer, and it is an ES module package whose main entry is out/main/index.js. A separate typecheck script runs tsc twice, once against tsconfig.node.json for the Electron side and once against tsconfig.web.json for the renderer, with separate tsconfig.node.json and tsconfig.web.json files in the repository root. ## A keyboard-first interface with a suggestion to turn the sound on The README says rice cooker is best experienced with the keyboard and sound on, and the key bindings are minimal: the up and down arrows move the selection, and enter applies it. That is the entire movement vocabulary, which is why the mouse is not mentioned anywhere in the guide. The HUD exists to fill in the context that a minimal interface leaves out, showing the rice name, the rice number and indicators for the keys being pressed. Sound is toggled from the menu, and there are three colour themes to switch between. Whether the sound is genuinely part of the experience or a novelty is a matter of taste, but the design assumption is clear: this is a tool meant to be driven without looking at the pointer, the way a launcher is. ## BSD-3-Clause licensed, young, and packaged for Linux desktops The licence is BSD-3-Clause, a permissive licence that allows reuse in closed source products provided the notice and conditions are kept, and the LICENSE file at the repository root holds the exact text to read before shipping anything based on it. The project is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-05-22, with v0.1.2 tagged on 2026-05-12 and v0.1.1 on 2026-05-07. The repository layout gives a sense of how the pieces are separated: a src directory for the renderer, an electron directory for the main process, a backend directory holding the Rust code, a packaging directory, and an electron.vite.config.ts that ties the two builds together. The presence of a packaging directory alongside an AUR install path suggests the app is also built into distributable Linux packages, which matters for anyone who wants the tool without going through an AUR helper. ## Conclusion rice cooker suits someone on Arch with Hyprland who wants to see a community desktop setup running before committing to it, and who accepts that the tool only ever points quickshell at the selected rice. It does not suit anyone on another distribution or on a desktop without Hyprland, since the boot screen rejects unsupported setups, and it does not suit a user who wants a managed dotfiles setup, since it explicitly leaves existing files and dotfiles alone. Verify first that your system matches the supported setup, browse in preview mode before installing, and keep a note of your current quickshell configuration so that revert returns you where you started. ## FAQ ### How do I install rice cooker? The README gives one command for Arch users, yay -S rice-cooker, and mentions paru as an alternative. There is no install path documented for other distributions, since the tool currently only works on arch plus hyprland. ### Does rice cooker overwrite my dotfiles? No. The README states that rice cooker only points quickshell at your selected rice, does not overwrite your existing files or directories, and does not modify your dotfiles. The revert option returns you to the rice you started with. ### What systems does rice cooker support? The README says rice cooker currently only works on arch plus hyprland and only contains quickshell rices. The boot screen automatically rejects unsupported setups, and forcible entry is possible but the README warns to do so at your own risk. ### What keyboard shortcuts does rice cooker use? The README lists three: up arrow moves the selection up, down arrow moves the selection down, and enter applies the selection. The ESC key opens the menu, which holds revert, submit a rice and credits. ## Sources - [amarsbar/rice-cooker on GitHub](https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker) - [Issues](https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker/issues) - [License: BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker/blob/main/LICENSE) - [README](https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker/blob/main/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/amarsbar/rice-cooker/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/amarsbar-rice-cooker