What is conky.cc?

Updated

conky.cc is the official documentation site for Conky, the lightweight system monitor for Linux and BSD. If you are trying to figure out what a specific Conky variable does, how to change a global setting, how to extend Conky with Lua, or how to build it from source, this is the reference to use. It is a documentation resource, not a download portal or a place to find ready-made desktop themes.

What the site covers

The documentation is organized into a handful of top-level sections, each aimed at a different task:

Section What it answers
Variables The objects you display — text, bars, graphs, and more
Configuration settings Global parameters that control how Conky behaves
Lua API How to extend Conky with custom behavior via Lua
About What Conky is and what it can do
Compiling How to build Conky from source
Contributing How to contribute to the project
Docker How to run Conky with Docker
Syntax Highlighting Enabling .conkyrc syntax highlighting

The Variables section is where most users spend their time. Variables are the building blocks of a Conky config: each one renders a specific piece of information, such as text, a bar, or a graph. When you want to add a new readout to your desktop, you look up the variable here first.

Configuration settings are separate from variables. These are global parameters that change Conky's overall behavior rather than adding a single displayed object. If your change affects the whole window or the whole process instead of one line of output, it likely belongs in this section.

Where to go for user configs and scripts

The documentation itself is reference material. For working examples, the site points to the wiki on GitHub, which holds user configs, Lua scripts, FAQs, and more. That is the better destination when you want to see how other people have assembled variables and settings into a complete setup, or when you hit a problem that the reference pages do not address.

How to use it

A practical workflow looks like this:

  1. Decide what you want to display or change.
  2. If it is a new on-screen object, look it up under Variables.
  3. If it changes Conky's overall behavior, look it up under Configuration settings.
  4. If you need custom logic beyond what variables offer, check the Lua API.
  5. If you need a complete example or troubleshooting help, move to the GitHub wiki.

The site does not list pricing or account requirements in the material available, so treat it as a documentation reference and check the project itself for anything about distribution or installation terms.