Aurora Shell is a GNOME Shell 50 extension with 22 optional desktop features in one preferences window. It runs inside GNOME Shell and supports no other desktop environment.
Supported Shell versions are listed in metadata.json. Shell internals change between GNOME
releases, so do not force-install Aurora Shell on an unlisted version. Some modules also depend on
services that may be absent: GNOME Weather for Weather Clock, Tesseract for Capture Tools OCR, and
Vela for Vela VPN Quick Settings.
Aurora Shell is licensed under GPL-3.0-only. See LICENSE and CREDITS.md.
The recommended build is published on extensions.gnome.org.
To install a release asset manually, download
aurora-shell@luminusos.github.io.shell-extension.zip from the
GitHub releases page, then run:
gnome-extensions install --force aurora-shell@luminusos.github.io.shell-extension.zip
gnome-extensions enable aurora-shell@luminusos.github.ioLog out and back in if the extension is not available in the current Shell session. Open the
Extensions app or run gnome-extensions prefs aurora-shell@luminusos.github.io to configure modules.
Release assets also include a .development.shell-extension.zip package with contributor tools for
development and QA sessions.
Install a newer ZIP with the same --force command. Existing GSettings values remain in the
extension schema unless you reset them explicitly.
Disable or remove Aurora Shell with:
gnome-extensions disable aurora-shell@luminusos.github.io
gnome-extensions uninstall aurora-shell@luminusos.github.ioSee Troubleshooting when installation, loading, or a module fails.
All modules can be toggled independently. Most are enabled by default; Auto Theme Switcher and Vela VPN Quick Settings are opt-in.
- Dock and panel: Dock, Aurora Menu, Power Menu Avatar, Volume Mixer, Low Battery Percentage, Lock Key Indicators, Bluetooth Menu, Weather Clock, Meeting Clock, and Tray Icons.
- Appearance: Theme Changer, Icon Weave, App Search Tooltip, and Auto Theme Switcher.
- Behavior: Skip Overview on Login, Pip On Top, Focus Launched Windows, Capture Tools, XWayland Indicator, and Vela VPN Quick Settings.
- Privacy and clipboard: Privacy and Clipboard History.
Low Battery Percentage temporarily enables GNOME's native percentage display while a battery is discharging below 30%. It does not override a percentage display that the user enabled. Vela VPN Quick Settings routes the Shell VPN toggle through Vela's D-Bus API; its optional GNOME Shell fallback is also disabled by default.
The module reference records every module key, default, dependency, runtime policy, and implementation/test location.
Development requires Node.js 20 or newer, Yarn 4, just, and the GNOME 50 development/runtime tools
used by the selected test path.
just deps
just validate
just test unit
just package checkStart with the documentation index. It links to architecture, the edit-run-debug loop, module authoring, test selection, troubleshooting, and releases. Contributions follow CONTRIBUTING.md.
Aurora Shell incorporates or adapts work from the GNOME extension community. The complete source, license, and inspiration record is in CREDITS.md.