Promplet: A Small Windows Prompt Palette for AI Chats, CLI Tools, and Everyday Text Inputs

I have released a small Windows desktop app called Promplet.

Promplet is a tray-resident Windows prompt palette for quickly pasting reusable text into AI chats, CLI tools, terminals, Slack, email, and other text inputs.

GitHub repository:

https://github.com/isshiki/Promplet

Latest release:

https://github.com/isshiki/Promplet/releases/latest

Why I Made It

I often reuse small prompts and text snippets when working with AI chat tools, command-line AI tools, terminals, Slack, email, and other text inputs.

Of course, I could keep those snippets in a text file, a note app, or a clipboard manager. But I wanted something a little more direct:

a small palette that stays on screen
buttons that paste text immediately
groups for organizing prompts
keyboard shortcuts for visible buttons
a simple local app, not a cloud service

That is the idea behind Promplet.

What Promplet Does

Promplet keeps a small, always-on-top palette on your desktop. Each button represents one reusable prompt or text snippet. Clicking a button pastes the text into the application that had focus before the palette was clicked.

The main palette is designed to stay out of the way:

it does not appear in the taskbar
the X button hides the palette instead of exiting the app
the tray icon menu is used for settings, Prompt Library, reload, and exit
only one Promplet instance can run at a time

The palette shows prompts in the selected group. Groups are displayed as tabs, and the prompt buttons are stacked vertically. The palette height automatically follows the number of visible prompt buttons, and the width can be resized from the left or right edge.

Right-clicking a prompt button copies the text without pasting it.

Prompt Library

Promplet includes a Prompt Library window for managing groups and prompt buttons.

The Prompt Library supports:

adding and deleting groups
renaming groups
adding and deleting prompts
renaming prompts
editing prompt text
enabling or disabling prompts
moving prompts up or down
saving or canceling changes

Promplet supports up to 10 groups. Each group supports up to 10 prompt buttons. This matches the default keyboard shortcuts from Ctrl+NumPad1 through Ctrl+NumPad0.

Settings

Promplet also has a Settings window.

Settings currently supports:

theme mode: System, Light, or Dark
palette opacity
show/hide palette hotkey
paste button hotkeys
reset to defaults

Theme and opacity changes are previewed while the dialog is open.

Default Hotkeys

The default hotkeys are:

Ctrl+Alt+Space: show or hide the palette
Ctrl+NumPad1 ... Ctrl+NumPad9: paste visible buttons 1-9
Ctrl+NumPad0: paste visible button 10

The NumPad shortcuts depend on how Windows reports the physical numpad key, so NumLock should be kept on. Avoid adding Shift to numpad shortcuts because Windows may stop reporting the key as NumPad.

Hotkeys can be changed in Settings.

Install

There is no installer for the current release.

Download the release zip, extract it, and run Promplet.exe.

Open the latest release page.
Download Promplet-v1.0.0-win-x64.zip from the release assets.
Extract the zip.
Move the extracted folder to a stable location.
Run Promplet.exe.

Latest release:

https://github.com/isshiki/Promplet/releases/latest

The release zip contains a self-contained Windows x64 build, so no separate .NET runtime installation is required.

For normal use, Promplet.exe is the only file required to run the app.

Data File

Prompts and app settings are stored in:

%APPDATA%\Promplet\prompts.json

Promplet creates this file automatically on first launch.

If the JSON file is invalid, Promplet backs it up with a .bak suffix and recreates a valid default file.

Build From Source

If you want to build Promplet yourself, you need:

Windows
.NET 10 SDK
Visual Studio 18 or later with WPF desktop development, if you want to open the solution in Visual Studio

Development build:

dotnet build .\Promplet.slnx

Publish a single-file Windows x64 executable:

dotnet publish .\Promplet\Promplet.csproj `
  --configuration Release `
  --runtime win-x64 `
  --self-contained true `
  -p:PublishSingleFile=true `
  -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true `
  -p:DebugType=None `
  -p:DebugSymbols=false `
  --output .\artifacts\Promplet-1.0.0-win-x64

Roadmap

Promplet v1.0 is already usable, but I plan to improve it gradually.

Current roadmap direction:

v1.1: data safety, backups, import, export, and restore
v1.2: Windows startup behavior and operational shortcuts
v1.3: diagnostics, logging, and troubleshooting support
v1.4: Prompt Library usability improvements

The roadmap is directional and may change as Promplet evolves.

License

Promplet is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Closing Thoughts

Promplet is not intended to be a large prompt management service. It is a small local Windows tool for people who want to keep frequently used prompts and text snippets close at hand.

I made it because I wanted a simple, fast, always-available prompt palette for my own workflow. If you use AI chat tools, AI CLI tools, terminals, Slack, or email every day, it may be useful for you too.