Show HN: Vicinae – A native, Raycast-compatible launcher for Linux

[aurellius]

Hi HN!

I’ve always been a fan of application launchers, and I was impressed by the approach the Raycast team took — especially their extension system. About six months ago I started building something similar for Linux, aiming to integrate deeply at the OS level and give extensions a lot of power.

Vicinae is written in C++ with Qt Widgets. I chose Widgets over QML for more imperative control of the UI, especially around extension handling. So far that’s worked well — modern C++ is great.

To support my goals I built a number of custom widgets, including a fully virtualized list that can efficiently render tens of thousands of items. That gave me a lot of respect for Qt — it’s a powerful framework that mostly stayed out of my way.

A key feature is support for Raycast extensions (React + TypeScript), most of which can be installed and used directly inside the launcher (though not all features are implemented yet). There’s also a native API package (@vicinae/api) for writing Vicinae-specific extensions with additional capabilities. This required writing a custom React reconciler — surprisingly straightforward, though still unpolished.

Like Raycast, Vicinae ships with powerful built-in modules, but the goal isn’t to make a clone. I want it to grow into its own project that fits the FOSS model better, while staying compatible with the Raycast ecosystem. I also plan to bring it to other OSes eventually.

I’d love feedback on the technical approach, and suggestions for what would make this useful to you. Contributions are very welcome — I’ve already been pleasantly surprised by how quickly people started helping.

Docs: https://docs.vicinae.com Repo: https://github.com/vicinaehq/vicinae

[robinhood]

This is amazing and incredible. Thanks for this. Raycast is great, and there are not many good launchers on Linux unfortunately. Launchers are so important in my opinion to interact with the computer. I hope this project will change the situation on Linux.

[aurellius]

thanks! I think so too. Easy extensibility is also a very important factor imo. I think React (declarative UI in general) has it good there.

[xn--yt9h]

Installation was easy, and it works as expected without interfering with i3 window controls.

However, the sole reason I'm keeping an eye out for raycast-compatible launchers is the ability to integrate the raindrop.io extension - which seems to be broken when used through Vicinae.

Maybe someone else running raindrop got it to work; "TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'subscribers')".

[aurellius]

what version are you running? I'm currently working on improving extension support but yes, some are still in a broken state.

[diath]

This is actually very impressive - such a high quality project on technical level. I'll definitely dig into the source to see how the React & C++ widgets integration works as it looks like an interesting approach.

[aurellius]

Thanks! Honestly a lot of the code you will find has very messy parts to it but that's mostly because I didn't get the time to make it any better yet

[mgrandl]

Insanely cool. I wrote my own raycast inspired launcher a while ago and never got around to adding proper extension support. There is also https://github.com/project-gauntlet/gauntlet which also has react extensions, but not raycast compatible afaik.

[aurellius]

did you open source it? I know about gauntlet and tried it before, great project!

[kwbr3000]

You should join forces with https://github.com/ByteAtATime/raycast-linux, mentioned some time ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44551762

[aurellius]

Yeah I know about this project, but I don't know how joining forces would go as the tech stack is entirely different.

[tertle950]

never knew I wanted this until I saw it! this looks very fully featured and awesome, will keep in mind for the future

[aurellius]

yeah. The general idea of having anything at a few keystrokes is the most amazing thing to me

[dinkleberg]

This is fantastic! Raycast is one of the few things I miss on Linux. It looks like that is no longer the case.

Great to see it already has a Nix flake too! I was able to get it setup basically instantly.

[aurellius]

Thanks, although it's not up to Raycast's level (yet)!

[imiric]

This looks very slick and polished. Nice work!

I'm used to drun/rofi and enjoy their simplicity, but have also secretly envied the out-of-the-box experience of more fully featured launchers on macOS. I remember using Spotlight and Alfred many years ago, and being impressed by the experience.

I like that you chose to make it compatible with Raycast, and how easy it is to extend, based on a quick look at the docs.

I'll definitely keep an eye on your project, and give it a try. Thanks for sharing!

[aurellius]

I have a very similar experience, I used mac for a long time, then moved to linux and used the simpler alternatives. Then I found Raycast and their extension system, and thought it would be amazing to have something similar on Linux, so I made this :)

[sureglymop]

Works great on hyprland with uwsm! I hope window resizing will be supported as it would be nice for extensions (that wish to resize it temporarily). Already have some extension idea.

[aurellius]

Extension resizing would be tricky from a UX standpoint, as it would make things a little bit unpredictable, but general window resizing will definitely be a thing

[raun1]

I've been ogling Raycast for a while now, wishing I could have that level of functionality. I'm excited to try this instead of ilia in Regolith.

[rubymamis]

Great job! Would love to see a write up on how you implemented that - especially React integration into the Qt app.

[aurellius]

Thanks! Yeah I will definitely write something like that in the future

[avdept]

Any chance to compile it for macOS ARM?

[aurellius]

not yet but that's the next target

[alluro2]

Looks amazing, thank you - installing!

[mkarrmann]

Thank you so much for making this!

[bazhand]

Installing (Arch btw), love the UI

[aurellius]

thank you! (from a gentoo user, I guess that makes us cousins)

[kevinpiac]

I love it! Incredible work!

[whydoineedthis]

I dont understand why I would use this. Can someone eli5?

[tbezman]

this is crazy. nice job