libghostty-vt-dotnet

.NET bindings for libghostty-vt — the standalone virtual terminal parser from the Ghostty terminal emulator.

Use this library to parse VT output, inspect the terminal grid, build your own renderer, or embed a terminal in any .NET application without pulling in the full Ghostty GUI.

What's included

Namespace	Description
Ghostty.Vt.Terminal	Create terminals, write VT sequences, read state
Ghostty.Vt.RenderState	Inspect the screen grid, rows, cells, colors, cursor
Ghostty.Vt.KeyEncoder	Encode keyboard events into VT escape sequences
Ghostty.Vt.MouseEncoder	Encode mouse events into VT sequences
Ghostty.Vt.OscParser	Parse OSC (Operating System Command) sequences
Ghostty.Vt.SgrParser	Parse SGR (Select Graphic Rendition) attributes
Ghostty.Vt.Formatter	Format grid content as plain text, HTML, or VT
Ghostty.Vt.KittyGraphics	Query Kitty image protocol placements
Ghostty.Vt.GridRef	Reference and compare grid positions
Ghostty.Vt.Focus	Focus reporting
Ghostty.Vt.Paste	Bracketed paste encoding

Prerequisites

• Zig 0.15.2 — builds libghostty-vt from source
• .NET SDK 9.0 — builds and runs the library and tests

Quick start

# Build the native library (clones ghostty upstream, compiles libghostty-vt)
just build-native

# Restore, build, test
just ci

Or step by step:

just build-native   # clone + compile libghostty-vt
just restore        # dotnet restore
just build          # dotnet build
just test           # dotnet test

Usage example

using Ghostty.Vt;

// Create a 80x24 terminal
using var terminal = new Terminal(80, 24);

// Write VT sequences
terminal.VTWrite("\x1b[31mHello, \x1b[1mWorld!\x1b[0m");

// Inspect the grid
using var renderState = new RenderState();
terminal.UpdateRenderState(renderState);

foreach (var row in renderState.Rows)
{
    // Read cell content, style, colors
}

NuGet

The library ships as DeBlasis.GhosttyVt on NuGet with native runtimes for:

Platform	Runtime ID	Native library
Windows x64	win-x64	ghostty-vt.dll
Linux x64	linux-x64	libghostty-vt.so
macOS ARM64	osx-arm64	libghostty-vt.dylib

Development

# Full CI pipeline
just ci

# Build native for a specific target
just build-native target=x86_64-linux

# Pack a NuGet package
just pack version=1.0.0

# Check for upstream Ghostty changes
just check-upstream

CI

GitHub Actions builds the native library from upstream ghostty-org/ghostty and runs all tests on every push. A daily workflow checks for upstream changes and publishes prerelease packages automatically. Stable releases are cut via annotated v* tags — see RELEASING.md.

License

MIT