A third-party **bar-widget** never receives `barWidgetRegistry`, and the `PluginBarApi` facade it gets as `bar` doesn't expose one either. A widget that hosts other widgets — a tray with a drawer, a group, an overflow menu — therefore has no way to resolve the components it is meant to show.

I don't know whether this is a deliberate narrowing or an oversight, so this is a question as much as a report.

## What a bar-widget receives

`Bar.qml`'s `injectProps()` injects exactly three properties:

https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/plugins/bar/Bar.qml#L1999-L2006

```js
function injectProps() {
  var target = activeItem
  if (!target) return
  if ("bar" in target) target.bar = firstParty
    ? root : root.pluginBarApiFor(pluginApiId, moduleName, registered)
  if ("moduleName" in target) target.moduleName = moduleName
  if ("settings" in target) target.settings = moduleSettings
}
```

For a third-party widget, `bar` is the `PluginBarApi` facade, whose surface is tooltips, click targets, popouts, panel switching, `_run`, `_setCenterHoverRevealSuppressed`, and `_moduleWidgets`:

https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/plugins/bar/Bar.qml#L250-L270

`_moduleWidgets` looks close but isn't it — it returns the plugin's **own** live instances across monitors, and only for its own module name:

```js
_moduleWidgets: function(requestedId) {
  return String(requestedId || "") === String(moduleName || "")
    ? root.moduleWidgets(moduleName) : []
}
```

## Where the registry does get injected

`shell.qml` injects `barWidgetRegistry` at three sites — the bar itself, service instances, and panel loaders:

- `configureBar` — https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/shell.qml#L223
- service instantiation — https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/shell.qml#L920
- panel loader — https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/shell.qml#L1333

`pluginBarWidgetRegistryFor` already builds a detached, capability-scoped snapshot for third parties, so the safe object exists:

https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/blob/quattro/shell/shell.qml#L755-L772

It just never reaches the bar-widget instantiation path — the one place that would need it to host anything.

## Effect

`io.github.tyrichards.tray` declares `property var barWidgetRegistry` and reads `root.barWidgetRegistry || (root.bar ? root.bar.barWidgetRegistry : null)`. Both are null, so its drawer resolves 0 of the 8 widgets it is configured to hold. Instrumented in a local fork:

```
[tray] entries=8 hosted=8 hasContent=true registry=NULL resolved=0
```

`agents/skills/shell-dev.md` says entry points accept `pluginRegistry` / `barWidgetRegistry` "as appropriate", which reads as though a bar-widget could ask for one.

## Question

Is widget-hosting meant to be a full-bar-only capability now? If so, the docs could say so, and a bar-widget asking for `barWidgetRegistry` could be warned rather than silently handed null — the failure is invisible until someone opens the drawer.

If it isn't deliberate, adding the same `if ("barWidgetRegistry" in target) target.barWidgetRegistry = ...` line to `injectProps` (through `pluginBarWidgetRegistryFor`, so third parties keep the detached snapshot) would restore it without widening what a widget can reach. Happy to send that PR.

---
Reported with the help of Claude Code.