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rahul patwa
rahul patwa

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Granting root privileges to good luck on Linux

#ai #opensource #linux

Computers are full of notifications, status bars, terminals and spreadsheets.
Almost everything on your screen is trying to be productive.

SudoCharm is not.

It is a small GNOME extension that hangs a good luck charm from the top edge of
your screen on a cord. It drifts in a simulated breeze. You can grab it with your
mouse, pull it down, and flick it. Click it, and it performs a small ritual.

It does nothing useful. That is the entire point.

A nazar bead hanging on a string of wooden beads below the GNOME top bar, over a desktop

In short: SudoCharm is a free, open-source GNOME Shell extension for Linux
(GNOME 45–48, Wayland or X11). It hangs one of seven traditional good luck
charms below your top bar, drawn over your windows but taking none of your
clicks. Install it with one command; it is GPL-3.0 and there is nothing to buy.

Why build it?

The idea comes from Lucky Dangle, a wonderful menu
bar app for macOS. I saw it, loved the thought of having a charm dangling over my
workspace, and wanted one on Linux.

If you are on a Mac, go and buy theirs. For GNOME, I built an independent
open-source version from scratch — my code, my artwork, their idea.

The name comes from sudo, which grants superuser rights on Unix. SudoCharm
applies that to luck, which is obviously not something you can be granted
privileges over. That is the joke, and it does not need explaining twice.

What it actually does

The charm hangs below the GNOME top bar, floating over your open windows. Four things make it feel like an object rather than a widget:

  • It behaves like a real cord. Pull it down and the string stretches; let go and it whips back. This is an actual pendulum solved every frame, not a looping animation — so a longer cord genuinely swings slower, and a flick makes the charm trail behind the cord and catch up.
  • The breeze never repeats. The idle sway is built from three slow waves of 6.7, 10.9 and 17.3 seconds. Those never line up, so the drift never loops. A looping sway is the single thing that makes an object like this feel cheap.
  • It never gets in the way. Only the charm and its hook accept mouse clicks. Everything around them is completely click-through, so you can work normally underneath it.
  • It hides during screen shares. Start a video call, a screen recording or a remote desktop session and the charm quietly takes itself down, then hangs itself back up when the capture ends. Delightful on your own desktop; less so behind your head in a stand-up.

The charms

SudoCharm ships with seven traditional charms, each with its own artwork and its
own ritual. Click one and it performs it:

  1. Nazar boncuğu (Turkey) — the classic evil eye. Click it and it spins.
  2. Nimbu-mirchi (India) — seven chilies and a lemon, hung at a threshold to turn away misfortune. Click it and the old lemon drops away while a fresh one rises into place.
  3. Daruma (Japan) — the goal-setting doll. Click it once to paint its left eye when you make a wish; click it again when the wish lands to paint the right. It saves that state, so the doll keeps score across reboots.
  4. Maneki-neko (Japan) — the beckoning cat. Click it and its paw beckons three times.
  5. Hamsa (Middle East & North Africa) — the protective hand. Click it and the eye wakes.
  6. Horseshoe (Europe) — click it for a flip and a bounce.
  7. Scarab (Egypt) — click it and the wing cases swing open.

There is also an emoji option, so you can hang any character you like — 🍀,
🧿, or whatever you consider lucky — from the same cord.

You can also choose what it hangs by: a fine thread, a round leather cord,
twisted rope, or wooden beads.

How to install it

One command. It fetches the latest release, installs it and enables it:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rahulpatwa1303/SudoCharm/master/get.sh | bash
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Then log out and back in. GNOME cannot load a new extension into a running
Wayland session — there is no way around it, and it catches everyone once. On
X11 you can press Alt+F2, type r, and hit Enter instead.

Would rather not pipe a script into your shell? Reasonable. Download the zip from
Releases and run the same
two steps by hand — there is nothing to unzip, gnome-extensions takes the zip
as it comes:

gnome-extensions install --force sudocharm@rahulpatwa1303.github.io.shell-extension.zip
gnome-extensions enable sudocharm@rahulpatwa1303.github.io
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Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/rahulpatwa1303/SudoCharm.git
cd SudoCharm
./install.sh
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Requirements: Linux, GNOME Shell 45–48, Wayland or X11. GPL-3.0-or-later,
free, and staying that way. There is no macOS or Windows version and none
planned.

How to use it

Click the charm It drops down and performs its ritual
Drag it It swings, and the cord stretches as you pull
Drag the hook, or Ctrl-drag the charm Re-hang it anywhere along the top edge
Right-click it Switch charms, read where each one comes from, turn the breeze off, take it down, or open settings
Super+Alt+L Call it down
Super+Alt+K Take it down, or hang it back up

Take it down and a bare hook stays under the top bar. Click the hook whenever you
want it back.

Size, cord length, what it hangs by, how strong the breeze is and how quickly a
flick rings down are all in preferences:

gnome-extensions prefs sudocharm@rahulpatwa1303.github.io
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Blessing your commits

Everything runs on the session bus (D-Bus), so any shell script can reach the
charm with no dependencies.

Bless a commit automatically:

# .git/hooks/post-commit
sudocharm bless "$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"
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Or have it bless a passing test suite and give it a nudge when the tests fail:

pytest && sudocharm bless || sudocharm flick 9
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Every developer I have shown this to finds it funnier than it deserves.

Questions people asked

Does it work on Wayland?
Yes, on both Wayland and X11. Wayland is actually the reason it is a shell
extension rather than an ordinary app: a normal Wayland client cannot draw above
other applications' windows and let clicks pass through to them. Only the
compositor can grant that, and on GNOME the compositor is the shell.

Will it show up when I share my screen?
No. It detects screencasts, recordings and remote sessions and takes itself down
until the capture ends. If you would rather it stayed, there is a switch for that
in preferences.

Does it get in the way of clicking things?
No. The artwork is drawn on a layer that is deliberately absent from the
compositor's input region. Only two small rectangles — the charm and its hook —
accept input. Everything else passes straight through to whatever is underneath.

Why do I have to log out?
GNOME Shell loads extensions once, at startup, and cannot pick up a new one in a
running Wayland session. It is a GNOME limitation, not a SudoCharm one. On X11,
Alt+F2 then r restarts the shell without logging out.

Is it heavy?
No. It is a handful of arithmetic per frame and some artwork. There is no
network access, no telemetry and no background process — it lives inside the
shell that is already running.

Is it really free?
Yes. GPL-3.0-or-later, no paid tier, nothing to buy.

Get it

The idea is Lucky Dangle's, and is used here with
admiration. If you have a Mac, go and buy theirs.

Top comments (1)

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nazar-boyko profile image
Nazar Boyko •

I need to try it 😁
Does the pendulum keep solving frames once the swing has settled, or does it park itself until something touches it? Anything ticking per frame inside the shell process is the bit I'd want to know about before leaving it on a laptop all day.