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Tim Apple
Tim Apple

Posted on Originally published at blog.ninepointlabs.com

Autonomix 0.4: JSON for frontends, and a bar widget that uses it

#linux #opensource #json #cli

Autonomix CLI already tracked your GitHub Releases apps from the terminal, and on Omarchy it could ride along with omarchy update. What it could not do was talk cleanly to another program. Today that changes: 0.4 ships a JSON surface for every command, and omarchy-autonomix is the first bar widget built on top of it.

Why it matters

GitHub-release apps live outside the Arch repos. You want a count on the bar, a panel to install or update, and a password dialog — not a second terminal ritual. The CLI stays the source of truth in ~/.autonomix/config.json; the widget is just a frontend that speaks --json.

What’s new in autonomix-cli 0.4

  • --json on every command. add, list, check, update, install, and remove print structured objects on stdout and keep progress on stderr. Errors come back as {"error": "..."} with exit code 1.
  • list, install <app>, and remove <app> for frontends that need to drive one app at a time. remove stops tracking; it does not uninstall.
  • check and update take app names — by name, repo, owner/repo, or URL — so you are not forced to refresh everything.
  • add owner/repo works without pasting a full URL.
  • pkexec when there is no terminal, so a graphical frontend gets Omarchy’s polkit dialog instead of a silent sudo failure.
  • No surprise downgrades. Update detection now compares versions the way pacman does; only a newer release counts. The Omarchy post-update hook will not yank you backward.

Grab 0.4.1, not 0.4.0: the first 0.4 release mistook /dev/null for a terminal and reached for sudo from the bar. 0.4.1 asks the terminal driver properly, so installs from the widget get a password prompt.

The new Omarchy bar widget

omarchy-autonomix is a Quickshell plugin: a package icon with an update count, and a panel that lists tracked apps, installs or updates them, and lets you track owner/repo or a GitHub URL without opening a terminal. Middle-click the icon to check GitHub now. It needs autonomix-cli 0.4+ at /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.

git clone https://github.com/ninepointlabs/omarchy-autonomix ~/Projects/omarchy-autonomix
~/Projects/omarchy-autonomix/install.sh
omarchy plugin enable ninepointlabs.autonomix
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Grab the CLI 

autonomix-cli add https://github.com/ninepointlabs/autonomix-cli
# or update if you already track it:
autonomix-cli update
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Packages for Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, and Fedora are on the v0.4.1 release. If you are still on the October 11 updater post, this is the next chapter: same list of apps, now reachable from the bar.

Originally posted on blog.ninepointlabs.com.

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