CouchKit

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Makes a Windows PC behave like a games console on the TV, around Playnite's fullscreen mode. It's for PCs that you also manage or stream from remotely with Moonlight, through Sunshine or Apollo.

CouchKit is a single small background app with no window. Each feature can be switched off.

What it fixes

Controller

• Hold Back + Start to quit the game. After 1.5 seconds, CouchKit asks the game to close; after 4 seconds, it forces it closed. The controller rumbles each time. This works for windowed games, launchers and emulators, even when Playnite has focus.
• Tap the Xbox button to switch between the game and Playnite, like a console's Home button. Windows normally swallows the Xbox button, so on a TV PC it otherwise does nothing.

Streaming to another screen. When a Moonlight session connects, Sunshine and Apollo add a virtual display and make it the main screen. That normally drags Playnite and your game off the TV. CouchKit:

• Keeps Playnite and the running game on the TV. If the TV is off, it minimises them, so the remote session gets a clean desktop for management, strategy games and so on.
• Mutes Playnite and the game while a stream is connected, so their sound doesn't come through Moonlight.
• Brings Playnite back to the front when the stream ends.
• Switches sound back to the TV when the stream ends, the TV turns on, or the PC starts. Streaming hosts often restore some other device.
• Puts the TV back to its proper resolution and refresh rate whenever the set of screens changes. Windows remembers a mode per screen combination, so the TV can come back at the wrong one.

Lighting (optional, needs OpenRGB)

• Runs a flowing gradient in your colour palette across every RGB device OpenRGB can control: fans, RAM, GPU and motherboard.
• While a game is running, switches to colours picked from that game's artwork in Playnite.

Smart home (optional)

• Sends the running game's colours to a webhook, for example a Home Assistant automation, so the room's lights can match the game and go back afterwards.
• Plays a flowing animation in the game's colours on Nanoleaf panels, then puts back whatever they were showing.

The Guide: an Xbox-style guide on the TV

The Guide over a game (full-quality video).

Double-tap the Xbox button to open the Guide over whatever is running. LB/RB switch tabs, the D-pad or left stick moves (hold to scroll, faster the longer you hold), A selects and B goes back. Discord is optional: without it there's no Party tab, and everything else works the same.

• Home: what's playing (with its cover, how long this session has run, HowLongToBeat's estimates if you have that add-on, and achievement progress), Notifications, Resume, Take a screenshot (to PicturesCouchKit), Close game, and your recently played games from Playnite with cover art. Pick one to start it, or, while something is running, to switch to it: CouchKit closes the current game and starts the new one through Playnite.
• Party (Discord, optional): see below.
• Audio: choose where sound plays (TV or headset), and a volume mixer for the game, Discord and everything, adjusted with D-pad left/right.
• Lights: Home Assistant scenes, room lights on/off, and PC lighting on/off.
• System: CouchKit status (every feature, whether it's working, and what to do if not), the PC's status (CPU and GPU temperature and load, GPU power, memory, how long it's been on), turn the screen off, restart Playnite, restart or shut down the PC (each asks first), and free space on each drive.

The footer shows the controller's battery as a percentage, and a warning pops up when it runs low.

Any controller. CouchKit reads controllers through XInput, so PlayStation and Switch controllers need a translator such as Steam Input or DS4Windows. CouchKit still recognises them and shows their own button faces and names: ✕ and ○, L1/R1 and "PS button" for PlayStation; L/R and "Home button" for Switch. Set Controller.Style to override it.

Plug and play. Features whose apps aren't installed stay off quietly. Without Discord there's no Party tab; without OpenRGB or PlayniteAchievements, those parts simply don't show. System → CouchKit status lists what was found and how to set up the rest.

Notifications collects what you might have missed while playing or while the Guide was open: Discord messages, missed calls, achievements, low battery and screenshots. Home shows them with an unread count.

Sound and motion: quiet clicks and chimes (synthesised, nothing to install), the highlight sliding between rows, the tab pill gliding between tabs, and new content fading in. Both can be turned off.

CPU temperature needs admin rights to read, and FanControl already reads it. If you use FanControl, CouchKit can pass its readings to the Guide through a small helper that starts at sign-in with admin rights. The helper is CouchKit.exe itself with --sensors, and it only reads; it never touches the fans. To set it up, run this once in an admin PowerShell:

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗