Omarchy

Why it's ranked here

The update path is where the engineering shows. A normal update takes a Btrfs snapshot first when snapper is set up, refuses to start below 10 GiB free, asks for the sudo password once, runs per-user migrations after the package transaction, and deliberately drops that authorization before building community (AUR) packages, which run third-party build scripts. A raw pacman system upgrade is blocked by a package hook unless the user opts out explicitly. Themes cloned from a stranger's git repository have their code-bearing files stripped before activation. That is a distribution that has thought about how it breaks, under an MIT license.

What's good

The command router has no registry to maintain: every executable named with the omarchy prefix is a command, its filename is its route, and a comment header refines help text and aliases. A lint fails the test run on route collisions or a missing summary. The router also refuses to run a command when a help flag appears anywhere in its arguments, a fix written up after one such invocation started a real update. Tests stub system binaries and point home at a scratch directory, so they run on headless machines, and the desktop bar's logic is tested in Node without a compositor.

Tradeoffs

It is an opinionated Arch and Hyprland system, not a layer for an existing setup. Files it takes over from upstream Arch packages, such as the default shell profile and name-service config, are copied into place on every settings package upgrade, so user edits to them are overwritten; the project documents this. Resetting configs to shipped defaults is an explicit destructive command. The theme safety filter only applies to git clones: a theme unpacked by hand from an archive stages in full, and the docs say it is not a sandbox. The graphical acceptance tests need a disposable virtual machine and are excluded from the default test run.

How to use it well

Pick it if you want a keyboard-driven Linux workstation that arrives configured and you are happy on Arch. Run updates through its own update command rather than pacman so snapshots, migrations and restarts happen together, and keep personal themes, hooks and plugins in the user config folder so a dotfile manager can track them. Browse the command list with its built-in commands listing instead of reading scripts. For agent work the command groups include coding-agent usage data and an agent platform setup, but it is a desktop, not an agent framework; bring your own agent.

Observed

License

MIT (LICENSE, copyright David Heinemeier Hansson)

Language

Bash scripts, with a Quickshell (QML and JavaScript) desktop shell

Platform

Arch Linux with Hyprland; the manual has Mac support and dual boot chapters

Packaging

Two Arch packages, omarchy and omarchy-settings, with PKGBUILDs in a separate omarchy-pkgs repository

Interface

Single omarchy CLI routing to per-command executables, with --help and --json introspection

Tests

CLI and shell suites runnable headless; graphical acceptance suite runs in a disposable VM

Update safety

Package hook aborts direct pacman system upgrades unless explicitly bypassed