systemd-xdg-autostart-generator(8)

systemd-xdg-autostart-generator8

User unit generator for xdg autostart files

Usage

/usr/lib/systemd/user-generators/systemd-xdg-autostart-generator

Overview

systemd-xdg-autostart-generator is a generator that creates .service units for XDG autostart[1] files. This permits desktop environments to delegate startup of these applications to systemd(1) .

Units created by systemd-xdg-autostart-generator can be started by the desktop environment using "xdg-desktop-autostart.target". See systemd.special(7) for more details.

XDG autostart may be conditionalized using both standardized and non-standardized keys. In order to handle these, the generator may create one or more ExecCondition= entries. For non-standardized keys, well-known helper binaries provided by Desktop Environments are used. All external helpers must detect their corresponding desktop environment and must return success when run in a different environment. This is important as all ExecCondition= directives must succeed for an application to be started.

Table 1. Special XDG desktop file entries that are processed

EntryHandling
Hidden=, X-systemd-skip=No service will be generated if set to true
OnlyShowIn=, NotShowIn=ExecCondition= using systemd-xdg-autostart-condition
TryExec=No service will be generated if the binary does not exist or cannot be executed
AutostartCondition= (GNOME extension)ExecCondition= using gnome-systemd-autostart-condition
X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=No service will be generated if set to any value
X-KDE-autostart-condition=ExecCondition= using kde-systemd-start-condition

systemd-xdg-autostart-generator implements systemd.generator(7).

Notes

1.

XDG autostart

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/autostart-spec/autostart-spec-latest.html

Releases

4 releases since Debian 11 (Bullseye); the text changed 3 times.

  1. 11
  2. 12
  3. 13
  4. Arch

From systemd 262.1-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.