README.md

May 12, 2026 · View on GitHub

Zentty

A native macOS terminal for agent-driven development, built on Ghostty.
Zentty gets out of the way. Minimal friction, maximum focus.
Download · Install · Status · Build · Contributing

Zentty screenshot

Features

Worklanes, not just tabs. Borrowed from niri and Hyprland: a horizontally-scrolling strip of columns, each column a vertical stack of panes. Rearrange, resize, and navigate without losing your place.
Keyboard-first, top to bottom. Every action is a command. Every command is bindable. Rebind anything in settings, or fall back to the command palette when your muscle memory runs out.
Resume your workspace Zentty restores your worklanes on relaunch and can reopen agent sessions that were closed without finishing.
Command palette A fuzzy-searchable list of every action in the app, with your recent commands on top.
Global search Search inside the current pane or across every worklane with a single shortcut. Search without losing flow.
Agent-aware. Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, Cursor, Droid CLI, Gemini CLI, Kimi CLI, OpenCode, and Pi report their status into the sidebar, so you see what they're doing, what they're asking, and when they need you, without switching panes.
Native Ghostty themes. Zentty reads Ghostty themes directly, with a built-in picker, live preview, opacity, and blur. And if you've never installed Ghostty, the default experience is polished out of the box.
Scriptable control Interaction with worklanes or panes is scriptable via the embedded zentty CLI.
Built on Ghostty. GPU-accelerated rendering via libghostty, wrapped in a native Swift and AppKit shell. No Electron, no web views. It feels like a Mac app because it is one.

See Zentty CLI for command-line usage.

Install

Download the latest .dmg from the releases page, open it, and drag Zentty to your Applications folder.

Zentty updates itself in place via Sparkle once installed. No need to check back here for new versions.

Builds are signed and notarized by Zenjoy BV. Requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.

Status

Zentty is in active development. Expect rapid iteration, rough edges, and occasional breaking changes while the project is opened up.

Requirements

macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
Xcode
zig on PATH
gettext on PATH

Build

Zentty requires a local GhosttyKit.xcframework before the app can build normally.

Build the framework:

./scripts/build_ghosttykit.sh

Then build the app:

xcodebuild -project Zentty.xcodeproj -scheme Zentty -destination 'platform=macOS' build

If you need to regenerate the Xcode project from project.yml:

bundle exec fastlane mac generate_project

More detail about the Ghostty bootstrap flow lives in docs/ghosttykit-setup.md.

Test

Run the full test suite:

ZENTTY_TEST_DISPLAY_PROVIDER=betterdisplay scripts/test-on-virtual-display

Agent Hooks

Zentty bundles helper commands and environment variables for agent-aware workflows inside terminal panes.

Hook configuration details are documented in docs/agent-hooks.md.

For Kimi specifically: do first-time auth with kimi login before using wrapped kimi inside Zentty. Zentty passthroughs Kimi's management commands directly to the real Kimi binary so login/logout keep using the default Kimi config. If you want a specific model, prefer kimi --model <model-id> or set default_model in ~/.kimi/config.toml.