Desktop Environment
Workspaces, draggable widgets, sticky notes, keyboard shortcuts, and how the canvas stays in sync.
The shell isn't a single chat window — it's a full desktop canvas managed by . Generated widgets become movable cards you arrange across multiple virtual desktops.
Workspaces (virtual desktops)
MeghaOS ships four workspaces — Desktop 1–4 — each with its own set of widgets and
sticky notes. Switching is instant and managed by WorkspaceController.
| Concept | Behavior |
|---|---|
workspaces | Four independent Workspaces, each holding widgets + stickies |
activeWorkspaceIndex | The currently visible desktop |
switchWorkspace(i) | Jump to another desktop (keyboard shortcut handler is registered at startup) |
Each workspace keeps its own layout, so you can dedicate one desktop to work dashboards, another to monitoring, another to a scratchpad, etc.
Widgets as movable cards
Every component the agent returns becomes a DesktopWidgetData card on the canvas
. Cards carry layout state:
- position and colSpan — where the card sits and how wide it is
- dynamicHeight / overrideHeight — auto-fit or fixed height
- alignRight, padding, bgColor — presentation
- showClose — whether it has a close button
- isVisible / slideOutX — used by entry/exit animations
Cards can be dragged, resized, and closed. New cards animate in with a staggered grid entry
(_animateGridEntry).
Sticky notes
Alongside agent-generated cards, each workspace holds free-form sticky notes
(StickyNoteData) — lightweight, persistent jottings you can drop anywhere on the canvas.
The Telepath grid
On launch, the shell auto-runs a Telepath dashboard — a "glanceable" grid of cards
(email, news, summaries, and more). It remembers which cards you enabled via
SharedPreferences (telepath_cards_config) and reissues demo --cards=... on startup. You
can re-summon it any time by typing demo or telepath (append --cards=a,b to filter).
The data and AI summaries behind it come from the Telepath service.
Clipboard monitoring
The shell starts a ClipboardManager at launch that watches your clipboard history, feeding
the clipboard_history widget so you can recall recently copied items.
State sync
The canvas continuously reports its state back to the agent via StateClient
(_broadcastState → POST /api/state): a simplified list of cards plus the active
workspace index. This lets the agent reason about what's currently on screen and push
targeted updates.
Live updates without re-asking
When a widget needs to change after it's rendered — a JIT stream tick, a
workflow status update, a notification — the agent pushes an event over the Unix socket and
the shell patches the specific card in place (matched by its session id), no new /chat
round-trip required.
Built-in apps & overlays
The desktop also hosts real applications — a launcher, terminal, file explorer, control center, and settings — plus transient overlays the agent can summon. See Built-in Apps.