QuickAsk

A small, keyboard-first text panel for streaming responses through OpenCode Go. Each opening is one independent question: close and reopen to start fresh. The panel uses Noctalia's native controls, theme, Markdown and clipboard support.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	yusuferdemyamali/quickask
Entries	Panel: panel
License	MIT

Requirements

• Native Noctalia v5 with Plugin API 24 or later. This is a Luau plugin, not a legacy QML/Quickshell plugin. API 24 is needed for safe argv-form process execution; the panel and Markdown use earlier APIs.
• secret-tool on PATH (provided by libsecret on Arch Linux).
• A running, unlocked Linux Secret Service, such as GNOME Keyring, KWallet with Secret Service enabled, or KeePassXC with Secret Service integration.
• An OpenCode Go subscription/key with access to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. In Go Console, Settings → Privacy → Regions → Global must allow this model. QuickAsk does not change account privacy settings.
• A Wayland compositor supported by Noctalia. Tested on Hyprland; the shortcut below is optional and compositor-specific.

Provider suitability

OpenCode Go's documentation describes Go as intended for OpenCode and other coding agents, and asks clients to send typical coding-agent traffic. QuickAsk is a standalone question-and-response panel, not a coding agent or an OpenCode-validated client. Technical API compatibility and a user's personal confirmation do not establish blanket permission for general-purpose chat or an endorsement by OpenCode. Verify that your intended use is permitted for your account before sending a question. Provider clarification for public general-purpose use remains outstanding; no alternative provider, client impersonation or restriction bypass is included.

Store your key

Run this command in your own terminal and enter the key at the hidden prompt:

secret-tool store --label='QuickAsk OpenCode Go' application quickask provider opencode-go

Keep the key out of command arguments, shell history, configuration, .env files, screenshots and bug reports. Unlock your keyring first. QuickAsk has no password input field. To delete the stored key:

secret-tool clear application quickask provider opencode-go

The lookup attributes are unchanged from the local MVP, so an existing QuickAsk key can be reused.

Usage

Install and enable QuickAsk from Noctalia's community plugin store once it is published. This submission has not been merged or published yet.

For a checkout before publication, run this from its repository root. The symlink name must be unused; ln -sT refuses to overwrite an existing installation:

plugin_root="${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/noctalia/plugins"
mkdir -p "$plugin_root"
ln -sT "$PWD/quickask" "$plugin_root/quickask-publication"
noctalia msg config-reload
noctalia msg plugins enable yusuferdemyamali/quickask

Open or close the panel:

noctalia msg panel-toggle yusuferdemyamali/quickask:panel

The 520×380 logical-pixel panel appears at the bottom center of the focused monitor. Input receives focus automatically.

• Enter sends; Shift+Enter inserts a new line. Empty or whitespace-only input is rejected.
• A response streams as Markdown, including code blocks. The bounded answer area follows new output until you scroll away.
• Stop cancels the active operation and preserves received text. Copy response copies only the assistant's raw text/Markdown after completion, error or stop.
• Retry manually retries the same question after an error. There is no automatic retry or conversational continuation.
• Escape, an outside click or the close button closes the panel and cancels the operation. Reopening starts blank. Opening alone makes no network request.

All UI and error strings use noctalia.tr with an English catalog. Other locales can be maintained through Noctalia Translate; this submission includes only translations/en.json.

Optional Hyprland shortcut

Check for an existing SUPER+A binding before adding one. Back up your configuration; keep existing bindings and theme settings. For Hyprland's Lua configuration, add:

hl.bind("SUPER + A", hl.dsp.exec_cmd("noctalia msg panel-toggle yusuferdemyamali/quickask:panel"))

On the tested Hyprland version, reload with hyprctl reload config-only and inspect hyprctl configerrors. For a system actually using the traditional configuration instead:

bind = SUPER, A, exec, noctalia msg panel-toggle yusuferdemyamali/quickask:panel

If upgrading the local MVP, replace its old local/quickask:panel shortcut target with the published ID, and disable the old plugin after verifying the new one. Do not add a second binding for the same key.

IPC

noctalia msg panel-toggle yusuferdemyamali/quickask:panel
noctalia msg panel-close yusuferdemyamali/quickask:panel

There are no additional IPC events, settings, widgets, services or launcher providers.

Notes

Network, processes and privacy

Each explicit question or manual retry sends one HTTPS POST to:

https://opencode.ai/inference/go/openai/v1/chat/completions

The fixed model is deepseek-v4.1-flash, with top-level thinking: {"type":"disabled"} for non-reasoning mode. Requests contain a short system instruction, the entered question and stream: true. No previous questions, clipboard contents, files, images or desktop context are sent. QuickAsk sends its own User-Agent: quickask/0.1.1, the bearer credential, and a new x-opencode-session per independent question (stable for manual retries). It does not impersonate a validated client. TLS verification remains enabled; redirects are not followed.

The only spawned command is the direct argv form of secret-tool lookup application quickask provider opencode-go; no shell is used. Captured stdout/stderr are never logged or shown. Credentials are held only as short-lived in-memory references. HTTP error bodies and headers are not surfaced or logged.

There are no plugin filesystem reads/writes apart from Noctalia loading the shipped scripts/catalog, and no on-disk conversation history. Secret Service manages credential persistence. Copying uses Noctalia's clipboard API; your clipboard manager can independently retain copied text. The Noctalia host may persist plugin enablement/settings as usual.

Only one request is active per panel. Generation checks ignore callbacks after stop, close or retry. There is a 45-second inactivity watchdog, a 180-second total watchdog and a 256 KiB answer limit. Partial responses survive interrupted streams while the panel remains open. Missing/locked credentials, HTTP failures and connection errors show local, actionable messages without raw provider output.

Validation and limitations

• 44 deterministic tests execute the actual shipped Luau modules against a mocked Noctalia host, including serialized model/thinking fields, Unicode/escaping, SSE, HTTP errors, cancellation races, credential failures and clipboard failures.
• Tested native host: Noctalia 5.3.0 / API 34 on Hyprland. Native panel focus, keyboard behavior, dismissal, two-monitor placement and the English publication panel were checked. The screenshot shows the actual English idle panel; it is not a rendered mockup or an inference result.
• Prior local MVP validation included one successful GLM live stream. The current DeepSeek model has not been live-tested. Publication preparation sends no inference requests and does not read a real credential.
• Prior clipboard, long-answer scrolling and stop UI checks used deterministic data inside the native host. Real HTTP cancellation/fault/timeout cases and callback races are covered by mocks, not claimed as complete native validation.
• Light theme, fractional scaling and other compositors have not been validated.

Development checks (Python 3.11+ and official Luau CLI are test tools only):

noctalia plugins lint quickask
luau-compile --null quickask/panel.luau quickask/lib/api.luau quickask/lib/credentials.luau
python3 quickask/tests/run.py --runtime /path/to/luau

The test-only JSON codec is rxi/json.lua 0.1.2, commit dbf4b2dd2eb7c23be2773c89eb059dadd6436f94, MIT; its notice is in tests/vendor/LICENSE. Production uses noctalia.json. The test harness injects module globals and English translations; it does not prove the native loader/JSON codec or access the network/keyring.

Troubleshooting and removal

• Plugin held back: update native Noctalia to API 24+; do not lower plugin_api or substitute a shell-based credential lookup.
• Key not found: check secret-tool, Secret Service availability/unlocked state and the exact store attributes above. Never print the lookup result for debugging.
• HTTP 401/403: check the key, subscription, model region permissions and permitted use; 429: wait before manually retrying.
• No panel: confirm the plugin is enabled and use the exact IPC ID above. Check shortcut conflicts separately.
• A stopped or interrupted answer remains copyable. Close/reopen for another question.

To remove QuickAsk, close the panel, disable/uninstall yusuferdemyamali/quickask in Noctalia and remove only the shortcut you added. For a development installation, remove only the quickask-publication symlink you created; keep the source checkout. Clearing the Secret Service entry is optional and also affects a local MVP using the same attributes. No system packages or theme changes are required by this plugin.