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CutefishOS is Back With a Vibe-Coded Desktop That Doesn't Use Qt or GTK
Anthropic's Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5 AI models have been used to write the new Cutefish Desktop for CutefishOS, a distro that was in the news a few years ago.
Reion Wong, the creator and developer of CutefishOS, who also runs the project's X account, announced the desktop, showing it off with a demo video and a set of screenshots.
He describes his current workflow as mostly prompting an AI agent, then seeing what it produces.
Here's a first look at the new Cutefish desktop, rebuilt from scratch and fully independent. Every line rewritten with the incredible Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5.Our own Wayland compositor. Our own graphics library. All-new system apps.And apps launch instantly. pic.twitter.com/iqppJqpmlL
In the video demo above, you can see that the overall look and feel of the interface mimics macOS', with a top bar that houses a Control Center panel, a Notification Center, and standard status widgets.
Control Center holds toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, dark mode, Do Not Disturb, camera, and microphone, along with media controls and sliders for tweaking the display brightness and sound.
There’s also a configurable Dock that can sit on the left, bottom, or right of the screen, with sliders for its size and glass effect, plus modes like Always show, Always hide, and Smart hide.
And similar to GNOME, Cutefish Desktop's Overview mode spreads the open windows out on a grid, allowing users to add new workspaces, or "Desks" as the project calls them, from a handy button at the top.
The bundled apps include a file manager, terminal, calendar, system monitor, text editor, video player, screenshot tool, and image viewer that appear to be purpose-built for the new CutefishOS desktop experience.
Chromium, Firefox, KeePassXC, Ghostty, and LibreOffice also show up in the launcher as apps that run on the desktop.