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Right after install. You need a Wayland compositor running. No compositor, no windows.
1

Launch the terminal

otter-term
Renders on the CPU through the shared Otter render stack. The terminal grid does not need a GPU.
2

Start background daemons

Start these for now:
otter-bar &
otter-wallpaper &
otter-notifications &
otter-osd &
otter-clip daemon &
otter-idle &
otter-polkit &
For a permanent setup, add them to compositor autostart. See Session setup.
3

Open the launcher

Bind this to a compositor hotkey for daily use:
otter-launcher
Type to search apps. Try =2+3*4 (calculator), :heart (emoji), or clip (clipboard history).
4

Take a screenshot

otter-screenshot
Click and drag a region. The image copies to your clipboard.
5

Create a sticky note

otter-note new
Bind a hotkey, for example Super+N.
6

Check the weather

Print current conditions:
otter-weather
For the status bar, add a weather widget in otter-bar and run:
otter-weather --watch 900 --write-cache &
See otter-weather and otter-bar.
Bind global hotkeys in your compositor. Wayland apps cannot grab system-wide shortcuts. Examples:Hyprland (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf):
bind = $mainMod, D, exec, otter-launcher
bind = $mainMod, P, exec, otter-screenshot
bind = $mainMod, R, exec, otter-rec
bind = $mainMod, V, exec, otter-clip popup
bind = $mainMod, N, exec, otter-note new
bind = $mainMod, L, exec, loginctl lock-session
Sway (~/.config/sway/config):
bindsym $mod+d exec otter-launcher
bindsym $mod+p exec otter-screenshot
bindsym $mod+v exec otter-clip popup
See Keybinds for the full reference.

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What’s next

Session setup

Autostart the shell daemons your desktop needs.

Status bar

Set up widgets, tray, and the launcher button.

Settings

Bar, theme, and app settings in the GUI.

Configuration

Manual config files and hot-reload behavior.