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Settings

super + I opens the settings window. Every change applies at once; there is nothing to save.

Page Covers
General where you are (for the weather and sunset), units, evening warmth, your picture, the wallpaper / screenshot / recording folders, restoring your session at login, what changed after an update
Appearance the palette and its variant, light / dark / auto, corner radius, panel opacity, motion (full, reduced or off) and its speed
Bar which edge, floating or attached, autohide, the dock and its pinned apps and stacks
Notifications do not disturb, where cards go, how long they stay, how many stack, the focus digest
Calendars your accounts, each calendar’s colour and whether it shows, reminders, how often they sync
Launcher what it searches, how many results, the web search engine
Lock screen when the screen dims, locks, goes dark and suspends (on a laptop, on power and on battery), what the lock screen shows, the fingerprint reader
Keybinds where the binds live, and a button that opens the file
Modules which items each end of the bar carries, and in what order

The window writes ~/.config/vela/shell.json, and the shell watches the file: edit it by hand and the change applies as soon as you save. A few settings that rarely change are only in the file. The groups, with the keys worth knowing:

Key Default
appearance.mode "auto" "light", "dark", or "auto" (dark after sunset)
appearance.scheme "scheme-tonal-spot" matugen’s variant – how colourful the palette is
appearance.eveningWarmth.* on, from sunset, 90 min the evening warmth; screen: true warms the screen too (hyprsunset)
bar.position "top" "top", "bottom", "left", "right"
bar.floating true a gap round the bar; false attaches it to its edge
bar.autohide.mode "never" when the bar hides
bar.workspaces.count 5 workspaces always shown on the bar
bar.modules.left / centre / right the items at each end, in order
dock.enabled, dock.behaviour true, "autohide" the dock, and whether it hides
dock.pinned, dock.stacks desktop entries, and folders
notifications.position "top-right" where cards appear
notifications.timeout 6000 how long a card stays, in ms
launcher.wallpaperDir "~/Pictures/Wallpapers" where the wallpaper switcher looks
launcher.webSearch DuckDuckGo the search URL; the query is added to the end
capture.saveDir, capture.recordDir ~/Pictures/Screenshots, ~/Videos/Recordings where captures go
capture.defaultAction "copy" what Enter does in capture
clipboard.keep 200 how many entries the history keeps
weather.location "auto" "auto" (from your connection) or a city
weather.units "metric" or "imperial"
sessions.restoreOnLogin true bring the last layout back at login
dashboard.focusTimer.* 25 min, 4 sessions the focus timer, and its two switches
updates.checkCommand dnf5 check-update --refresh how updates are counted

The file itself carries a comment on most keys.