Omarchy Agentic OS Is Built for Developers Living in the AI Era
As a developer, I’ve worked across Windows, macOS, and Linux, and every one of them comes with its own set of annoyances.With Windows, maybe your computer is working on something important while you’re away, and Windows decides NOW is the perfect time for an update.
You come back only to discover your computer restarted, the process stopped, and nothing got done or worse, you lost work.
Ads and recommendations keep creeping further into the operating system, while Microsoft regularly trys to force you to use Bing and Edge.
Then there’s the privacy question: how much information is your operating system collecting in the background?
Most of us aren’t reading hundreds of pages of terms, privacy policies, and settings before clicking “Accept.”
And then there’s all the stuff running in the background that you never asked for. And with RAM prices these days, I’d rather save my memory for the things I’m actually using.
Then there’s macOS. Apple gives you a polished experience, but the ecosystem can feel incredibly locked down.
You’re using your own computer, but Apple still decides a lot about what you can install, change, customize, and how deeply you can control the system.
If you want to distribute software through Apple’s developer ecosystem, there are additional requirements and costs, including the annual Apple Developer Program fee.
Linux gives you an incredible amount of freedom and control, but that freedom can come with a cost your time & sanity.
When you’re constantly configuring, troubleshooting, fixing drivers, or figuring out why something suddenly stopped working, Linux can start feeling like another project instead of the tool you’re supposed to be using to get work done.
You install the operating system, download your development tools, configure everything, install updates, tweak your settings, and slowly rebuild your workflow. Before you’ve written a single line of code, you can easily burn hours getting your machine the way you want it.
Then I Tried DHH’s Omarchy, And I Was Impressed
What if your computer wasn’t something you had to constantly fight, configure, troubleshoot, and work around? What if instead, you could just tell your computer what you wanted and it figured out the rest? That’s what surprised me about Omarchy's Agentic OS. You can talk to it likes its a human.
Omarchy was created by David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), the creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder of Basecamp, and it feels very much like an operating system made by developers, for developers.
Omarchy Solves My Biggest Problems With Linux
It gives you the speed, freedom, and customization of Arch Linux without feeling like you need to dedicate your weekend to setting everything up. It comes professionally configured, packed with tools for developers, and most importantly built around a completely different idea of how we should interact with our computers in the age of AI.
Instead of digging through settings, searching forums, copying terminal commands, or waiting for someone to fix a problem, you can simply explain what you want to an AI agent.
Don’t like how something works? Change it.
Want a new shortcut or workflow? Build it.
Something breaks? Tell the AI what happened and ask it to fix it.
Your desktop suddenly starts to feel less like a fixed operating system and more like a programmable playground that you can shape around the way you work.
Why Are So Many Developers Talking About Omarchy?
It’s fast, minimal, incredibly customizable, and comes ready for modern development and AI-assisted workflows right out of the box.
I’ve been using Windows, macOS, and Linux for years, but Omarchy made me rethink what I actually want from an operating system.
Feel like you're a hacker from the matrix while using your computer without needing to be a tech wizard. Native Ai Integration makes it easy to fix or change anything about your computer. Just talk to it like it's a human.
And once you see what happens when you combine Linux-level freedom with native AI agents, you might start looking at your current computer a little differently too.
Remote Access with Tailscale & RustDesk
One of the most useful additions to my Omarchy setup is combining Tailscale with RustDesk for remote access. Tailscale creates a private network between your devices and gives each device a stable Tailscale IP address, so you can securely reach your computers from anywhere without worrying about your home IP address changing. RustDesk then handles the actual remote desktop connection, letting you control another computer almost like you're sitting in front of it.
This also means your laptop doesn't have to be the powerful computer. You could have a high-performance desktop at home and remote into it from a budget laptop with just 8GB of RAM. The heavy processing happens on the desktop, allowing you to do things like edit 4K video, work in Photoshop, render a 3D animation, or run demanding development tools while your laptop essentially acts as the screen, keyboard, and mouse.
For someone who travels or works remotely, this can give you desktop-level performance without carrying an expensive, heavy workstation laptop everywhere.
Fixing RustDesk with the Omarchy Agent
I did run into one frustrating problem when using RustDesk to remote from Omarchy into Windows: the Shift key would sometimes get stuck, causing Windows to behave as though Shift was permanently being held down and select everything. Rather than waiting for an upstream fix, I asked the Omarchy agent to investigate the problem and fix it on my system. It was able to make a workaround for the issue, which is a great example of what makes an agentic OS so useful you can ask the AI to investigate and modify your system when something isn't working the way you need it to.
A Feature I Didn’t Know I Needed: Swapping DNS Provider
No More Country-Blocked Websites
Omarchy defaults to a custom DNS provider, which can help bypass websites blocked at the DNS level.
As a digital nomad, this is surprisingly useful. For example, Vimeo is blocked In Indonesia. I spend a lot of time in Bali because my wife is Indonesian. On Windows, I can’t access Vimeo without using a VPN and its SLOW, but on Omarchy, it just works out of the box.
No messing around need to turn on a VPN just to access a website. It’s a small feature, but one I didn’t realize I needed until I had it.
How to Set Up Omarchy
Omarchy installation takes only 60 seconds once you’ve booted into the installer.
Getting Omarchy running is surprisingly easy, and you can even dual boot it alongside Windows without having to manually configure a boot menu.
- Download the official Omarchy ISO from Omarchy.org
- Flash the ISO onto a USB drive using BalenaEtcher.
- Restart your computer and boot into the BIOS/boot menu.
- Select your USB drive and start the installation.
For detailed installation instructions, check out the official Omarchy Getting Started guide.
This is where things get fun. I’ll show you the essential shortcuts, features, and first things you should know but first, a quick word from our sponsor.
A Quick Word From Our Sponsor
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It’s fast, simple, and free to get started. And if you’re working with other people, the Pro version adds Teams so you can organize and collaborate together.
Check out Sticky Note App at StickyNoteApp.com.
You Installed Omarchy… Now What?
Omarchy is built around a keyboard-first, tiling window manager called Hyprland, so it works a little differently from Windows or macOS.
Instead of constantly reaching for your mouse, dragging windows around, minimizing apps, and digging through menus, you use keyboard shortcuts to control almost everything. Windows automatically tile themselves to use the available screen space, and you can quickly jump between virtual workspaces, move windows around, launch apps, or make something full screen.
The most important key to learn is the Super Key—that’s the Windows key on most keyboards. Think of it as the starting point for almost everything in Omarchy.
Press Super + Space to open the main menu, or Super + K to see a list of all available key bindings.
It takes a little getting used to, but once the shortcuts become muscle memory, navigating your computer feels ridiculously fast.
These are the main Omarchy keyboard shortcuts worth learning. There are many more shortcuts available for almost everything you can do in Omarchy, but mastering the ones below will get you comfortable with the keyboard-first workflow and make you proficient with Omarchy much faster.
| Action | Key Binding |
|---|---|
| Close Window | Super+W |
| Close Everything | Ctrl+Alt+Delete |
| Full Screen | Super+F |
| Alt Full Screen | Super+Alt+F |
| Full Screen Within the Window | Super+Ctrl+F |
| File Explorer | Super+Shift+F |
| List of All Key Bindings | Super+K |
| Virtual Monitors | Super+1–9 |
| Move to Another Virtual Monitor | Super+Shift+1–9 |
| Move Windows Around | Super+Right / Left Click |
| Screenshot, Record & Color Grab | Ctrl+Super+C |
| Chromium (Browser) | Super+Shift+Space |
| ChatGPT | Super+Shift+A |
| Codex AI Assistant | Super+Shift+Ctrl+A |
| Open Code Editor | Super+Shift+N |
| Open Herder | Super+Ctrl+Enter |
| Tile Windows → Scroll View | Super+L |
| Share Menu | Super+Ctrl+S |
| Move to Different Window | Super+Arrow Keys |
| Move Windows to New Location | Super+Shift+Arrow Keys |
| Theme Menu | Super+Shift+Ctrl+Space |
| Terminal | Super+Enter |
| Move Window to Scratch PadMove window below to bring it back later | Super+Alt+S |
| Toggle Scratch Pad On / Off | Super+S |
| YouTube | Super+Shift+Y |
| X / Twitter | Super+Shift+X |
| Toggle Menu | Super+Ctrl+O |
| System Menu | Super+Esc |
| Download Video from Internet | Alt+Shift+D |
Make Omarchy Your Own
One of the biggest advantages of Omarchy is that it's an open-source project, so you're not stuck using the operating system exactly as it comes. You can modify it to fit your own workflow and even submit your changes through GitHub as a plugin or contribution to the core project.
Open Agent Window With: Super + Shift + Ctrl + A
I've already made a few changes to make Omarchy work better for me. For example, I added features to the file manager, including the ability to right-click to create a new file and right-click an existing file to copy its path. They're small additions, but they're things I use constantly as a developer. It was pretty easy todo with the AI agent to.
I also built my own quick-access menu containing the tools, programs, and shortcuts I use every day. Now I can simply click a + button in the top bar and instantly access the things I use most.
And you don't have to build everything yourself. There's a growing collection of community-made plugins that you can install to add new features and customize Omarchy without starting from scratch.
Download Plugins From:
Omarchy Plugin Marketplace
Because Omarchy has an AI agent that can work directly with the system, you can also describe a feature or workflow you want, have the agent help you build it, and potentially submit your modification back to the community for other Omarchy users to install.





















