Universal Overlay
QARK provides two ways to get AI results without opening the main window: Sparks for ad-hoc prompts and Flows for pre-configured pipelines. Both are independent features that share a system-wide overlay as their launch surface.
Sparks
Section titled “Sparks”Sparks is a direct prompt interface inside the overlay. Highlight text in any application, press the hotkey, type an instruction, and get a streamed response — without leaving the app you are working in. The result pastes back at the cursor, copies to clipboard, or opens in the main QARK window.
Sparks handles one-off questions, quick transformations, translations, and anything you would otherwise open a chat for.
A Flow is a complete execution pipeline — a content template with variables, a system prompt, a model, and an output action, executed in one click. Select text, trigger a flow, and the result is delivered where you need it.
QARK ships with built-in flows covering writing, analysis, code, vision, web, and research tasks. You can customize them, build your own, or import additional packs.
The Shared Overlay
Section titled “The Shared Overlay”Both Sparks and Flows are accessible from the same system-wide overlay, triggered by a global hotkey (default: Cmd+Option+Space on macOS, Ctrl+Alt+Space on Windows/Linux). The overlay has two tabs — Spark and Flows — that you switch between. Set which tab opens by default in settings.
From any application:
- Highlight text you want to process
- Press the overlay hotkey
- Use the Spark tab for a freeform instruction, or switch to the Flows tab to pick a pre-configured pipeline
- Results stream in, and the output action delivers them