5 Widget Layouts Every Developer Should Try

Your Home Screen is Prime Real Estate

Not all widget layouts are created equal. After analyzing thousands of WidgetDev users, we've identified five layouts that deliver the best productivity gains.

Choose the layout that matches your role and workflow, or mix and match elements to create your perfect setup.

Layout 1: The Solo Developer

Best for: Individual developers working on 1-2 main projects

Widget Configuration

• Large Contribution Graph at the top (shows your coding streak)
• Medium Build Status in the middle (main repository)
• Small PR Counter and Small Issue Counter side-by-side at the bottom

Why It Works

This layout keeps you motivated with your contribution streak front-and-center while giving you instant visibility into build health and open work items. Perfect for freelancers and indie developers who want to maintain momentum.

Pro Tip

Place this on your primary home screen so you see it every time you unlock your phone. That contribution graph serves as a daily reminder to keep your streak alive!

Layout 2: The Reviewer

Best for: Senior developers and tech leads who review a lot of code

Widget Configuration

• Large Review Queue at the top (PRs waiting for your review)
• Medium Your PRs in the middle (PRs you've opened)
• Small Team Activity at the bottom (who's shipping what)

Why It Works

Code review is a bottleneck in most teams. This layout makes it impossible to ignore review requests while also keeping you aware of your own PRs' status. The team activity widget helps you identify when team members might need unblocking.

Pro Tip

Enable notifications for the Review Queue widget so you're alerted when urgent PRs land. Respond within an hour and watch your team's velocity soar.

Layout 3: The DevOps Engineer

Best for: Platform engineers, SREs, and anyone responsible for infrastructure

Widget Configuration

• Large Multi-Pipeline Dashboard at the top (all environments)
• Medium Deployment Status in the middle (last 5 deploys)
• Small Incident Status and Small On-Call Badge side-by-side at the bottom

Why It Works

This layout gives you a complete operational overview at a glance. You'll spot build failures before they reach production and know immediately when deployments complete. The incident widget integrates with PagerDuty to show active incidents.

Pro Tip

Add this layout to your Apple Watch or Wear OS device. When you're on-call, you can check production health from your wrist without pulling out your phone.

Layout 4: The Multi-Project Juggler

Best for: Consultants, agency developers, and anyone managing 3+ active projects

Widget Configuration

• Large Repository Grid at the top (shows up to 6 repos)
• 3 Small Build Status widgets in the middle (one per critical repo)
• Medium Combined PR Counter at the bottom (all repos combined)

Why It Works

When you're context-switching between multiple projects, you need to know which one needs attention right now. The repository grid gives you instant triage capabilities—see which projects have red status and address them first.

Pro Tip

Color-code your repositories by client or project type in WidgetDev settings. This makes it even easier to identify which project needs attention when you glance at your home screen.

Layout 5: The Team Lead

Best for: Engineering managers and team leads who need visibility into team health

Widget Configuration

• Large Team Velocity at the top (commits and PRs by team member)
• Medium Review Bottlenecks in the middle (PRs waiting longest)
• Small MTTR and Small Deploy Frequency side-by-side at the bottom

Why It Works

This layout surfaces the metrics that matter most for team health. You'll spot when someone is blocked, identify review bottlenecks before they impact velocity, and track your team's DevOps performance metrics.

Pro Tip

Share this layout as a team dashboard so your team members can see the same metrics. Transparency around team health builds trust and helps everyone self-organize around bottlenecks.

Bonus: Lock Screen Layouts

On iOS 16+ and Android 12+, you can add widgets to your lock screen. Here's what works best:

iOS Lock Screen (4 circular widgets)

• Build status for main repo (green/red/yellow indicator)
• PR count waiting for your review
• Your open PR count
• Contribution count today (keeps you motivated!)

Android Lock Screen (Glanceable widget)

• Use the Quick Status widget that shows build status + PR count in a single line

Lock screen widgets let you check critical status without unlocking your device—perfect for meetings or when you just want a quick glance.

Experiment and Iterate

These layouts are starting points, not prescriptions. The best layout for you depends on:

• Your role and responsibilities
• Your team structure
• Which metrics you check most often
• Your device size and usage patterns

Try one of these layouts for a week, then adjust based on what you actually look at. WidgetDev makes it easy to add, remove, and rearrange widgets until you find your perfect setup.

Found a layout that works great for your role? Share it on Twitter and tag @bartzalewskidev—I'd love to feature it!