v5-getting-started-running-the-shell.md
Section titled “Autostart by your Wayland compositor”
This is the recommended method for launching noctalia, as it integrates with your window manager.
For the Niri compositor, add the following line to the end of your configuration file, typically located at ~/.config/niri/config.kdl
spawn-at-startup "noctalia"
For the Hyprland compositor, append this to your existing hyprland.start event hook in your Lua configuration file, typically located at ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua
hl.on("hyprland.start", function() hl.exec_cmd("noctalia")end)
If your compositor expects startup commands to return after the shell has initialized, run Noctalia in daemon mode:
Terminal window
noctalia --daemon
Daemon mode returns after the shell has initialized. The optional polkit authentication agent starts asynchronously after the UI is up.
Section titled “Manual Launch for Debugging”
The most direct way to run Noctalia for testing or debugging. Open a terminal and execute:
Terminal window
noctalia