👾 Discord RPC 👾

Customize your Discord Rich Presence straight from quick settings

Note

Discord RPC by ArnavK-09 is GNOME Shell extension that lets you customize and broadcast your Discord Rich Presence directly from the quick settings panel — pick an activity type, set a title & caption, toggle images and the elapsed timer, and turn broadcasting on/off with one click. Everything is event-driven and non-blocking: no background daemon, no polling loops, minimal resources, and it survives hard poweroffs cleanly.

🌟 Features

• Quick-settings tile – A native QuickMenuToggle with toggleMode so you flip broadcasting on/off right from the system menu; the arrow opens a compact popup.
• Compact popup – Activity type grid (Playing / Listening / Watching / Competing), editable Title (sent as activity.name, replacing the app name) and Caption (activity.state), and an "Advanced settings" button. GNOME theme colors + accent highlight, no custom palette.
• Advanced preferences – Adw-based window for Client ID, activity type, Title/Caption, Show elapsed time + Reset timestamp, Show images + large/small asset keys & hover text, Clear on disable, and Only show when Discord is open.
• Only show when Discord is open – Hides the tile unless a live Discord IPC socket is detected (event-driven GFileMonitor + async probe, no busy polling).
• Crash-free & leak-free – Every timer, signal, and monitor is torn down in disable(); async ops are guarded so they no-op after destroy.

💻 Installation

git clone https://github.com/ArnavK-09/discord-rpc-gnome-extension.git ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/discord-rpc-arnavk09@ArnavK-09 && cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/discord-rpc-arnavk09@ArnavK-09 && glib-compile-schemas schemas/ && gnome-extensions enable discord-rpc-arnavk09@ArnavK-09

pack into zip

zip -r discord-rpc-arnavk09@ArnavK-09.zip . -x "*.git*" -x ".github/*" -x "screenshots/*" -x "README.md" -x "package.json" -x "LICENSE" -x "*.ox*" -x ".gitignore" -x "node_modules/*" -x ".*"

Then log out and back in (or restart the Shell) so GNOME loads the extension, and set your Client ID in Preferences (from the Discord Developer Portal). Start Discord to broadcast.

🧩 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Runtime	GJS (ES modules) inside GNOME Shell
UI (shell)	St, Clutter, GObject signals, QuickSettings API
UI (prefs)	libadwaita (Adw), GTK4
Settings	GSettings / dconf (org.gnome.shell.extensions.discord-rpc)
Network	Discord local RPC over Unix socket (discord-ipc-{0..9})
Tooling	Bun, oxfmt, oxlint

⚙️ How It Works (behind the scenes)

Discord RPC talks to the Discord desktop client over its local IPC socket ($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/discord-ipc-N) — no gateway, no bot token, no external daemon.

1. Connect — lib/discordIpc.js opens the Unix socket with async Gio.SocketClient.connect_async() (non-blocking), tries each candidate path with a fresh cancellable, and performs the Discord RPC handshake (op 0, { v: 1, client_id }).
2. Handshake → READY — on op 1 READY, the IPC emits connected.
3. Broadcast — lib/controller.js builds the activity (name, state, assets, timestamps) and sends SET_ACTIVITY (op 1) frames as single-byte little-endian-header + JSON payloads via async write_all_async. Edits are debounced so typing doesn't flood Discord.
4. React — all preferences are GSettings keys; the controller observes changed::key and re-pushes instantly. The quick-settings tile binds checked ↔ enabled.
5. Detect Discord — lib/watcher.js uses an event-driven GFileMonitor + a 5s async probe to know whether Discord is running, so "Only show when Discord is open" hides the tile when it isn't.
6. Clean lifecycle — disable() disconnects every signal, removes every GLib source and monitor, and destroys all widgets; async ops are guarded by a _destroyed/_openGen generation flag so in-flight work aborts safely instead of touching freed objects.

📷 Screenshots

Here's a working and expected screenshot of Discord RPC

Quick settings tile — toggle broadcasting on/off	Preferences — client ID, activity, assets, behavior

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💻 Contributing

1. Fork the Repository
   Click the Fork button at the top-right of the repo page.

2. Clone Your Fork
   Clone the repo locally:

   git clone https://github.com/ArnavK-09/discord-rpc-gnome-extension.git

3. Create a Branch
   Create a new branch for your changes:

   git checkout -b your-feature-branch

4. Make Changes
   Implement your changes (bug fixes, features, etc.). Format & lint before committing:

   bun run format && bun run lint

5. Commit and Push
   Commit your changes and push the branch:

   git commit -m "feat(scope): description"
   git push origin your-feature-branch

6. Open a Pull Request
   Open a PR with a detailed description of your changes.

7. Collaborate and Merge
   The mastertainers will review your PR, request changes if needed, and merge it once approved.

🙋‍♂️ Issues

Found a bug or need help? Please create an issue on the GitHub repository with a detailed description.

👤 Author

Arnav K

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📄 License

Discord RPC is licensed under the Unlicense License. See the LICENSE file for more details.

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🌟 If you find this project helpful, please give it a star on GitHub! 🌟