dmenu for Raycast

A dmenu-style picker for macOS, built on Raycast. Pipe a list of options into the dmenu command-line script, pick one in Raycast, and get your selection printed back to stdout — just like the classic X11 dmenu.

How it works

The project has two halves that talk to each other over a local socket:

• dmenu.py (bundled with the extension as assets/dmenu.py) — a CLI script you pipe items into. It starts a local socket server, opens the Raycast extension via a deeplink, sends over the list of items, waits for you to pick one, and prints your selection to stdout.
• dmenu.tsx — the Raycast extension command. It connects to the socket, receives the list, shows it as a searchable Raycast list, and sends your selection back when you choose one.

dmenu.py is only meant to be launched through the dmenu script — running the Raycast command directly (from root search, a hotkey, etc.) shows a friendly "not meant to be launched directly" screen instead of crashing, with an action to install the CLI script (see below).

First time using this

1. Install the Dmenu extension from the Raycast Store.
2. Open the Dmenu command directly once (e.g. from Raycast's root search). Since it's launched with no arguments, it shows the "not meant to be launched directly" screen — run the Install Dmenu CLI action there. This copies the script bundled with the extension to ~/.local/bin/dmenu and marks it executable.
3. Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH. The same screen has a Copy Path Export Line action; paste it into your ~/.zshrc (or equivalent) and reload your shell:

   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
   source ~/.zshrc
   

Once that's done, dmenu is callable from any terminal, anywhere:

Usage

echo -e "Option A\nOption B\nOption C" | dmenu -p "Pick one"

Example

git branch | sed 's/^[* ] //' | dmenu -p "Checkout branch" | xargs git checkout

Developing from source

If you're working on the extension itself rather than just using it:

git clone https://github.com/AnasFd/dmenu-raycast dmenu-raycast
cd dmenu-raycast
npm install
npm run dev   # runs the command via `ray develop`, importing it into Raycast

While developing, you can pipe into assets/dmenu.py directly instead of the installed dmenu shim:

echo -e "Option A\nOption B" | ./assets/dmenu.py -p "Pick one"

Requirements

• macOS with Raycast installed
• Python 3
• The dmenu Raycast extension command installed/available locally

Credits

Based on irth/dmenu_raycast. Fixed here after the original went stale.