idle-ladder

An Omarchy shell plugin that adds the two rungs Omarchy's idle service does not have: the backlight fades as a warning before the idle lock, and the machine suspends a while after it.

Upstream's ladder is two rungs — screensaver and lock — and it treats a laptop on battery exactly like a desktop on mains. This plugin adds a rung at each end, and every timing can differ by power source.

  fade     lock - fadeLead      the backlight walks down; any activity restores it
  lock     idle.lock            upstream's, unless `lock` moves it earlier for this power source
  suspend  lock + suspendAfter  systemctl suspend

Install

omarchy plugin add https://github.com/bnrobinson93/omarchy-idle-ladder.git
omarchy plugin enable idle-ladder

Updates come from omarchy plugin update idle-ladder. The plugin is a service — it adds nothing to the bar.

It needs brightnessctl for the fade rung; Omarchy already installs it.

Configuration

Settings live on the plugin's own entry in ~/.config/omarchy/shell.json, the same place omarchy.clock takes its format from. Edits hot-reload with the rest of the shell config. Every key is optional.

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "id": "idle-ladder",
      "ac": { "fadeLead": 5, "suspendAfter": false },
      "battery": { "fadeLead": 120, "lock": 300, "suspendAfter": 120 }
    }
  ]
}

Values are seconds. false or 0 switches a rung off; omitting a key leaves the default in place.

The lock key only moves the lock earlier

The lock rung belongs to Omarchy's own idle service, which reads a single idle.lock for both power sources. This plugin can beat that timer to it — locking sooner on battery, say — but it cannot delay a lock it does not own. A lock value at or past idle.lock is ignored, with a warning in the shell log. Set the later of your two lock times as idle.lock, and the earlier one here:

{
  "idle": { "screensaver": 300, "lock": 900 },
  "plugins": [
    { "id": "idle-ladder", "battery": { "lock": 300 } }
  ]
}

That locks after 15 minutes plugged in and after 5 minutes on battery.

Suspending on AC

Off by default, since a plugged-in machine usually has a reason to stay up. Turn it on the same way as anywhere else:

{ "id": "idle-ladder", "ac": { "suspendAfter": 600 } }

What it respects

• stay-awake — Omarchy's stay-awake indicator disables upstream's whole idle cycle, and it stops the fade, the early lock, and the suspend here too.
• suspend-off — the toggle that hides Suspend from the Omarchy menu also holds this plugin's suspend rung back.
• Idle inhibitors — every rung is registered with respectInhibitors, so a video playing full screen keeps the ladder from starting.

Checking what it is doing

Each rung narrates itself into the shell log next to upstream's idle service:

journalctl --user -f | grep idle-ladder

At startup and on any config or power-source change it logs the whole ladder:

idle-ladder: fade at 780s, lock at 900s, suspend off (ac)
idle-ladder: fade at 180s, lock at 300s (ours), suspend at 420s (battery)

Editing plugin files in ~/.config/omarchy/plugins/idle-ladder/ needs omarchy restart shell to take effect — the shell logs a reload on save but keeps running the code it loaded at install time. Config edits in shell.json do hot-reload.

Remove

omarchy plugin remove idle-ladder

That disables the service, drops its entry from ~/.config/omarchy/shell.json, and deletes the plugin directory. Nothing is left behind elsewhere: the ladder keeps no state of its own, and the lock reverts to idle.lock for both power sources. Removing it during a fade is the one case worth knowing about: the fade has no teardown hook, so the backlight stays where it was left. idle-dim saves the old level with brightnessctl -s, so brightnessctl -r brings it back.

License and dependencies

MIT — see LICENSE.

Nothing is vendored, nothing is compiled, and no network call is made.