---
title: "GNU Terry Pratchett"
space: "GNU Terry Pratchett"
url: "http://buff0k.co.za/clacks/gnu-terry-pratchett"
updated: "2026-09-21"
---

# GNU Terry Pratchett

> A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.

[GNU Terry Pratchett](http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/) is a small tribute project that keeps Sir Terry
Pratchett's name — and, by extension, Discworld's Clacks towers — alive in the fabric of the web. Sites that
join in add an `X-Clacks-Overhead` HTTP header to their pages, the same idea as the nginx directive:

```
add_header X-Clacks-Overhead "GNU Terry Pratchett" always;
```

This app is the Frappe/HRMS equivalent: enable it once and every rendered page quietly carries the header,
with no template changes anywhere else in the codebase.

## Finding the settings

The app has **no desktop icon and no Workspace entry** on purpose — it's one small settings page, not
something to browse to. Open the **Awesome Bar** (press `Ctrl+K`, or click **Search** in the sidebar) and
type **GNU Terry Pratchett Settings**:

![Awesome Bar search for GNU Terry Pratchett Settings](/files/awesome-bar-search6b34a6.png)

## Configuring it

The settings page is a singleton with three things to set:

![GNU Terry Pratchett Settings page](/files/settings-paged1afd3.png)

- **Enabled** — the master on/off switch. Off means no header is ever added, regardless of scope.
- **Apply To** — `Both`, `Website Pages Only`, or `Desk Pages Only`. Website pages are anything served
  outside `/desk` (portal pages, web forms, print views, the site in general); desk pages are the `/desk`
  app shell itself.
- **Overhead Names** — a table of names. `GNU Terry Pratchett` ships as the first row on install; add more
  rows to remember more people. All rows are joined with commas into one header value, e.g.
  `X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett, GNU Some Other Name`.

Only the **System Manager** and **Website Manager** roles can view or change these settings. The header
itself is not permission-gated — once enabled, it's added to every matching response for every visitor,
logged in or not, since it's a plain response header rather than a document operation.

## Checking it's actually working

From a terminal:

```bash
curl -sI https://your-site.example/ | grep -i x-clacks-overhead
curl -sI https://your-site.example/desk | grep -i x-clacks-overhead
```

Or open the site in a browser, open DevTools → Network, reload, and check the response headers on the top
document request. It should be absent on `/api/*` responses — those aren't HTML pages, so the app
deliberately skips them.

If the header is missing everywhere, check that **Enabled** is checked and that **Overhead Names** has at
least one row — the settings page refuses to save "Enabled" on with an empty list.