System controls

Cross-cutting system utilities: volume, brightness, CPU info, a bat wrapper, IP lookup, and clipboard image annotation.

---

volume

Volume control for PipeWire/WirePlumber with dunst-compatible notifications. Handles sink (output) and source (microphone) muting, and volume up/down in 5% steps (capped at 150%).

MOD=1  # Volume increment steps (5%)

case $1 in
up)
  isSinkMuted && toggleSinkMute
  wpctl set-volume -l 1.5 @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@ "$MOD"%+
  sendNotification
  ;;
down)
  isSinkMuted && toggleSinkMute
  wpctl set-volume -l 1.5 @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@ "$MOD"%-
  sendNotification
  ;;
mute)
  toggleSinkMute
  muteNotification isSinkMuted getSinkName "Speaker"
  ;;
mic-mute)
  toggleSourceMute
  muteNotification isSourceMuted getSourceName "Microphone"
  ;;
esac

Arguments

Argument	Action
up	Unmute if muted, raise volume 5%, notify
down	Unmute if muted, lower volume 5%, notify
mute	Toggle output mute, notify with device name
mic-mute	Toggle microphone mute, notify with device name

Notifications

Uses notify-send with dunst stack tags (x-dunst-stack-tag) so volume notifications replace each other, and a progress value hint (-h int:value) for a visual bar:

notify -a "Volume" -u low \
  --hint=string:x-dunst-stack-tag:"$NOTIFY_TAG" \
  --hint=string:synchronous:"$NOTIFY_TAG" \
  -h int:value:"$volume" "Volume: $volume%" -t 1000

Package	volume
Runtime deps	wpctl (wireplumber), libnotify, bc, jq, gawk
Volume cap	150% (-l 1.5)
Step	5%

nix run github:semi710/utils#volume -- up
nix run github:semi710/utils#volume -- down
nix run github:semi710/utils#volume -- mute
nix run github:semi710/utils#volume -- mic-mute

Fallback notifications

The notify() helper falls back to echo if notify-send isn't available, so the script still works in a headless context.

---

brightness

Screen brightness control via brightnessctl, with dunst-compatible notifications and a progress bar.

case $1 in
up)
  brightnessctl s +5%
  sendNotification
  ;;
down)
  brightnessctl s 5%-
  sendNotification
  ;;
esac

Arguments

Argument	Action
up	Increase brightness 5%, notify
down	Decrease brightness 5%, notify

Notification

Computes the percentage from brightnessctl g (current) and brightnessctl m (max):

brightness=$(($(brightnessctl g) * 100 / $(brightnessctl m)))

Package	brightness
Runtime deps	brightnessctl, libnotify
Step	5%

nix run github:semi710/utils#brightness -- up
nix run github:semi710/utils#brightness -- down

---

icpu

CPU information viewer with multiple modes, all using watch for live updates.

case $arg in
  "freq")     watch -n1 -t "grep 'MHz' /proc/cpuinfo" ;;
  "temp")     watch -n1 -t sensors | grep 'Core' ;;
  "usage")    watch -n1 -t mpstat -P ALL 1 1 ;;
  "turbo")    cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo ;;
  "governor") cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor ;;
esac

Arguments

Argument	Default	Shows
freq	yes	Per-core clock speeds from /proc/cpuinfo
temp		Core temperatures from sensors
usage		Per-CPU usage via mpstat
turbo		Intel P-State turbo status
governor		CPU governor for each core

Package	icpu
Runtime deps	sysstat (mpstat), lm_sensors (sensors)

nix run github:semi710/utils#icpu
nix run github:semi710/utils#icpu -- temp
nix run github:semi710/utils#icpu -- usage
nix run github:semi710/utils#icpu -- governor

---

cat

A bat wrapper with sane defaults: tab width 2, and plain (non-paged) output unless -p is explicitly passed.

paged=false
batarg=("--tabs" "2")

for arg in "$@"; do
  case "$arg" in
  -p) paged=true ;;
  *) batarg+=("$arg") ;;
  esac
done

if ! "$paged"; then
  batarg+=(-pp)
fi

bat "${batarg[@]}"

Behavior

• All arguments except -p are forwarded to bat.
• -p switches to paged mode (bat's default pager behavior).
• Without -p, adds -pp (plain, no paging, no decorations) for clean pipe output.

Package	cat
Runtime deps	bat

nix run github:semi710/utils#cat -- file.txt
nix run github:semi710/utils#cat -- -p file.txt   # paged

---

myip

IP address lookup with two modes: global (public, via Google DNS) and local.

Arguments

Flag	Description
-g	Global/public IP via dig against ns1.google.com (IPv4 + IPv6)
-l	Local IP addresses from ip addr / ifconfig (excludes loopback)

case "$1" in
-g)
  echo "ipv4: $(dig -4 TXT +short o-o.myaddr.l.google.com @ns1.google.com)" | sed 's/"//g'
  output=$(dig -6 TXT +short o-o.myaddr.l.google.com @ns1.google.com)
  # ... prints ipv6 or "Not available"
  ;;
-l)
  (ip addr show || ifconfig) 2>/dev/null |
    awk '/inet / && !/127.0.0.1/ {print $NF ": " $2}' |
    sed 's#/.*##'
  ;;
esac

Package	myip
Runtime deps	dnsutils (dig), ip / ifconfig

nix run github:semi710/utils#myip -- -g
nix run github:semi710/utils#myip -- -l

IPv6 graceful degradation

The -g mode tries IPv6 and prints "Not available" if the dig fails, rather than erroring.

---

img-annotate

A one-liner that pipes the clipboard image into Swappy for annotation, with a notification on failure.

wl-paste | swappy -f - &>/dev/null ||
  "notify-send" "swappy failed" "Maybe clipboard is not having a image as input"

Workflow

1. Screenshot to clipboard (e.g. via grimblast / hyprpicker).
2. Run img-annotate - Swappy opens with the clipboard image.
3. Annotate, save, and the result goes back to the clipboard.

Package	img-annotate
Runtime deps	wl-clipboard (wl-paste), swappy, libnotify

nix run github:semi710/utils#img-annotate

Hyprland keybinding

"$mod SHIFT, s, exec, grimblast --notify copysave area && ${lib.getExe u.img-annotate}"