kitten-desktop-ui-run-server(1)

💖 kitten-desktop-ui-run-server 💖

okay bestie so this is the kitten-desktop-ui-run-server page from the kitten manual — yes, the kitty-adjacent one 🐱 — and it's literally the little gremlin that boots up all the servers that make kitty play nice with your Linux desktop ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

kitten-desktop-ui-run-server — spin up the various servers that let kitty integrate with the Linux desktop 🖥️💫

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🎀 USAGE 🎀

kitten desktop-ui run-server

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

ngl, timing matters here. This one has to be run very early in the startup sequence of your window manager — like, before any other programs get run. no cap, before literally everything else. it's giving "first one on the dance floor" energy 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• --override, -o — override individual config options, and yes you can stack this one as many times as you want 🔁. syntax is name=value, so like -o color_scheme=dark — chef's kiss, that's how you do it 😌
• --config, -c — point at the config file(s) you wanna use 📂. every config file gets merged onto the builtin desktop-ui-portal.conf, overriding the builtin values. you can pass this option multiple times to read multiple config files in sequence, and they get merged together 🫶. and if you use the special value NONE, no config file gets loaded at all, periodt.

if you don't pass this option, config files get searched for in this order, bestie:

1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kitty/desktop-ui-portal.conf
1. ~/.config/kitty/desktop-ui-portal.conf
1. $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/kitty/desktop-ui-portal.conf

the first one that exists is the one that gets used as the config file ⭐

and if the environment variable KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY is set? that directory is always used and the whole searching thing above just does not happen 🙈

also!! if /etc/xdg/kitty/desktop-ui-portal.conf exists, it gets merged before any user config files — i.e. with lower priority 📉 — so it's perfect for setting system-wide defaults for all users 👑. and you can use either - or /dev/stdin to read the config from STDIN 🍓

• --help, -h [=no] — show help for this command 💖 (yes the [=no] is really there, don't come for me)

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💀 friendly heads up: run this suuuper early in your WM startup, okay? before anything else. that's not a vibe suggestion, that's the whole point.

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and that's the tea, bestie 🍵 — this was kitten manual page for kitten-desktop-ui-run-server, version 0.42.1, dated Jul 14, 2025. slay, go start your servers 💅✨🦋