nod

nod is a terminal-first app launcher — type an app name in a terminal, it opens the GUI. A quick little package from phosphorous, the software company family.

Why

Most launchers are GUIs that open GUIs. nod lives in the terminal, discovers the apps you actually have installed, and opens them with a fuzzy match. It's the launcher for people who never left the prompt.

Features

• Discovery — indexes .desktop apps from system + user locations (also Flatpak and Snap).
• Interactive picker — uses fzf when present, a numbered menu otherwise.
• Fuzzy open — nod open <query> finds the best match and launches it.
• Search — matches app names and executables.
• Ships with nod-grid — a tiling layout manager that opens apps into a layout (half, thirds, quarters) via wmctrl on X11.
• Packaged — install via npm (nod-package), sudo make install, or install.sh.
• Man page + bash completion — man nod, source contrib/completion.bash.

Install

It's a proper package — install it your way:

npm (once published)

npm install -g nod-package

From a checkout — system install

git clone https://github.com/phosphorous-Software-Development/nod.git
cd nod
sudo make install          # copies nod + nod-grid to /usr/local/bin (and a man page)

From a checkout — local install

./install.sh ~/.local      # PREFIX argument; default is /usr/local
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Or just run from the repo:

./bin/nod
./bin/nod list
./bin/nod open firefox

After any install, build your app index once:

nod reindex

You can also run the smoke tests from a checkout:

make test

Usage

| Command | What it does | | --- | --- | | nod | Interactive app picker | | nod list | List all discovered apps | | nod search <query> | Search by name or executable | | nod open <query> | Fuzzy match + launch | | nod reindex | Rebuild the app index | | nod-grid setup | Create a default layout config | | nod-grid half code firefox | Open two apps side by side | | nod-grid thirds code firefox terminal | Three columns | | nod-grid quarters a b c d | Four quadrants |

How it works

• Apps are discovered from .desktop files (/usr/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications, ~/.local/share/applications, /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications, /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications).
• Exec= lines are kept intact (arguments preserved) and launched detached with setsid.
• The index lives at ~/.nod/apps.tsv; logs at ~/.nod/logs/nod.log.
• nod-grid reads layouts from ~/.nod/grid/*.conf and, when wmctrl is available, repositions the launched windows on X11.

Requirements

• Bash 4+
• Linux (macOS launch support is planned)
• wmctrl only needed for nod-grid tiling positions

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

© 2026 phosphorous. Made to glow 🌙