Tray client

skald-tray is a separate user-session process. It subscribes to daemon events and reconnects with bounded backoff after daemon restarts. Closing it does not stop recording or the daemon.

The menu provides:

• daemon and dictation state
• start, stop, cancel, and toggle through typed IPC
• overlay launch and close actions plus configured mode and visualizer style
• configured microphone and a microphone-test shortcut
• cleanup status with an explicit network and cost warning
• configuration and documentation shortcuts
• daemon restart and tray quit actions

The tray does not display or retain transcript content. Dictation actions still use the daemon’s normal target-safety and paste pipeline.

Run

just tray

Installed builds can run skald-tray directly.

Autostart

Create ~/.config/autostart/skald-tray.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Skald Tray
Comment=Skald dictation status and controls
Exec=skald-tray
Terminal=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

For Hyprland or Sway, the equivalent compositor startup command is:

exec-once = skald-tray

Desktop support

The client requires a D-Bus user session and a StatusNotifier/AppIndicator host. It exits with an actionable error if those are unavailable.

• KDE has native StatusNotifier support.
• GNOME requires an AppIndicator/KStatusNotifierItem extension.
• Hyprland and Sway require a bar or panel with StatusNotifier support.
• X11 support depends on the selected desktop panel.
• Headless and SSH sessions should use skald status, skald watch, or skald waybar instead.