COSMIC feature priorities are organized into Epochs, with each Epoch representing roughly six to eight months of focused development. As a rolling-release desktop environment, COSMIC delivers features and improvements on a weekly basis as work is completed and validated through QA.

The roadmap highlights major planned initiatives, while ongoing enhancements and bug fixes are continuously triaged and added to the project board throughout each development cycle.

COSMIC Epoch 2

Project board

https://github.com/orgs/pop-os/projects/27/views/1

Desktop

COSMIC Sync

libcosmic Iced rebase

• Adds IME and fcitx support
• Adds widget animation support
• Adds time travel debugging
• Adds hot reloading support
• Adds reactive rendering which reduces CPU usage by 60-80%
• Adds multi-threaded image decoding and parallel GPU image uploads - Adds image::allocate task, which can significantly reduce VRAM usage
• libcosmic window drop shadows

COSMIC Applets

• Applet Settings
• Notifications Applet - Feature Request: clickable notifications in the applet (and focus apps when there is no specific action)
• App Tray - Filter open windows by workspace
• COSMIC Clipboard Manager - Integration with COSMIC Sync (COSMIC Clip Feature)

COSMIC Comp

• Frosted effect
• Vulkan Renderer
• Gaming improvements
• Option to prefer SSDs when no client preference is present
• Protocols for cosmic-control (keyboard, mouse, and clipboard)
• File transfer protocol - Support for the protocol has been assigned for Chromium (electron apps). Hopefully it’s not too long before it’s implemented and then propagates to electron apps.

COSMIC Settings

• Window Management - Tiling Window Exceptions
• Firmware manager in Settings
• Upgrades and Refresh page
• Printers settings and COSMIC printers dialog

Wallpaper

• Live, Dynamic, and Wallpaper transitions

OSK

Accessibility

• KB Shortcuts for navigating the desktop (focusing panels and moving along applets)
• Improve screen reader flow in COSMIC apps

Workspaces

• Named workspaces (navigable from the Launcher)
• Toggle to disable cycling from first to last and last to first workspace

Shortcuts

• Alt+` to switch between windows of the same app
• Alt+Space to open window context menu
• Super+D to show the desktop

COSMIC Screenshot

• Record video, markup tools, and show cursor

CuteCOSMIC Qt6 Platform Theme - COSMIC tracking

Wacom tablet support

Apps

COSMIC Files

• General fixes and improvements
• Expandable folders in list view
• Arrangeable files on the desktop

COSMIC Image Viewer

COSMIC Reader

COSMIC Term

• Terminal color scheme creator/editor - Match system or custom

COSMIC Epoch 3

Project Board

https://github.com/orgs/pop-os/projects/28/views/1

Desktop

Desktop Animations - smooth the desktop experience

• Cosmic-greeter to the desktop
• Animate panel appearance on login
• Workspaces animation (window spread, switching workspaces in overview, rearranging window previews when one has been moved to another workspace, workspace picker movements)
• Application launch and close animation
• App Library and Launcher
• Pop up animation (applets, tooltips, etc.)
• AppTray and dock icon animation on hover and click
• AppTray reflow when apps are added or removed
• AppTray window previews
• OSDs fade or slide
• Apps - menus, NavBar, ContextDrawer, toast
• Animation settings - Reduced motion; Shorten animation duration

COSMIC Comp

• HDR
• Night Light
• Gamepad/Controller Support
• Restore session - Retain window sizes and locations during the same login; Option to retain apps and windows through logout/reboot
• SVG Cursors - Which will close some additional Cursor fixes issues; Add cursor size feature and options Accessibility

COSMIC Panel

• Hotloading applets

Applets

• Notifications design improvements
• Mounted devices applet
• Network applet updates for multiple devices

COSMIC Theming

• Customizable cosmic-comp shaders - Global - entire screen; Region - panels, popups, windows; Wallpapers
• Auto-matching environment - Auto-match accent to desktop wallpaper; Auto-match theme to desktop wallpaper; Desktop sound theme; Hardware integration: Launch LEDs, System76 laptop LEDs, Potentially OpenRGB
• COSMIC themes w/ bundled wallpaper (if freely distributable) in COSMIC Store - Format to package themes; Design for apply a theme from the store; Design for choosing an installed theme in Settings

COSMIC Settings

• Option to automatically mount drives at boot
• Sound: Add per-app volume control
• Window Management - Choice of how to launch windows below a certain size when tiled; Show or hide SSDs
• Customizable touchpad gestures
• Flatpak application permissions (xdg-permission-store gui for revoking perms)
• Fingerprint registering in Users
• Power button options

Accessibility

• Cursor Size - Arrives with SVG cursors
• Mobility options - Sticky keys, slow keys, bounce keys, mouse keys
• Flash notifications (flash the screen so the user knows a notification has arrived)
• Live captions

Apps

COSMIC Files

• Explore Miller Columns
• Explore Split View
• Explore replacing GVFS and cloud storage integration

COSMIC Keyring

COSMIC System Monitor

COSMIC Player

• Playback controls - Shuffle; Repeat all/one
• Online metadata - Cover art; Track names; Artist; Subtitles
• Steaming sources

COSMIC Store

• System packages (viewing and installing libs)

COSMIC Edit

• Navigation tree features
• Spell check
• LSP support
• File and folder management in the NavBar
• Resizable NavBar
• Splits