mightty

mightty is a GPU-powered terminal emulator built with Rust, GPUI, platform PTYs, and Ghostty's libghostty-vt.

mightty targets Windows first, with Windows shell I/O through ConPTY and Unix shell I/O through a forkpty-backed bridge.

Features

• GPU-rendered terminal UI through GPUI.
• Terminal emulation through Ghostty's libghostty-vt, built directly from the pinned Ghostty source submodule.
• Scrollback, selection, mouse reporting, safe paste, hyperlinks, a scrollbar, and full-scrollback search.
• Typed profiles, themes, fonts, key bindings, and safe settings reload.
• One typed action model for shortcuts, native menus, and the command palette.
• Binary pane splits with divider drag, directional focus, resize, and zoom.
• Named workspace save and restore with fresh shell processes.
• Shell titles, trusted local directories, prompt navigation, and command-output selection through PowerShell and Bash integration.
• One Windows process with activation IPC and a persistent quick-terminal window.
• Signed per-user MSIX packaging, AppInstaller updates, and Windows default-terminal handoff support.
• Kitty graphics rendering with crop, z-order, deletion, and GPU cache reuse.
• Windows shell I/O through ConPTY and Unix shell I/O through forkpty.
• Embedded JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono for terminal text.
• Feedback capture with Ctrl+Shift+F12.

Stack

• GPUI for UI rendering.
• gpui-component for the root component wrapper.
• Ghostty for the VT engine.
• A project-owned Rust module over Ghostty's public C interface.
• Windows ConPTY and Unix forkpty for shell process integration.

Requirements

• Rust with edition 2024 support.
• Git, used to initialize and validate the pinned Ghostty submodule.
• Zig 0.16.0, used directly by build.rs to compile Ghostty's VT library.
• The initialized Ghostty source submodule at ghostty/.
• Four local JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono files under fonts/JetBrainsMono/: JetBrainsMonoNerdFontMono-Regular.ttf, JetBrainsMonoNerdFontMono-Bold.ttf, JetBrainsMonoNerdFontMono-Italic.ttf, and JetBrainsMonoNerdFontMono-BoldItalic.ttf. Fonts are not vendored.
• Windows 10 version 1809 or newer for ConPTY, or a Unix platform for forkpty.

This repo includes a .mise.toml pin for Zig:

git submodule update --init ghostty
mise install

The commands below use mise exec -- so Cargo sees the pinned Zig executable. You can instead put Zig on PATH or set ZIG to a specific executable and run Cargo directly. Normal builds do not require Clang. Regenerating the private Rust C bindings after a Ghostty update additionally requires libclang.

Build

mise exec -- cargo build
mise exec -- cargo build --release

The root build.rs runs Zig against the local ghostty/ submodule and links the resulting static libghostty-vt archive. It never fetches a separate Ghostty checkout and there are no libghostty-vt Rust crate dependencies.

The binding generator records the Ghostty commit and public-header fingerprint in src/ghostty/bindings.version. Every build verifies the submodule against that record before compiling or linking. See docs/ghostty-integration.md for ownership, safety invariants, and the update procedure.

The ordered product feature list and implementation research are in docs/feature-roadmap.md.

Run

mise exec -- cargo run

The default shell is pwsh.exe on Windows. Unix uses $SHELL, falling back to /bin/sh when the variable is unset.

See Settings for profiles, themes, fonts, key bindings, and safe live reload.

See Workspaces for named layout save and restore.

See Shell integration for PowerShell and Bash prompt markers, directory inheritance, and semantic actions.

See Windows distribution for signed packages, updates, protocol activation, and default-terminal setup.

Shell I/O

Terminal I/O is wake-driven. TerminalWidget owns a PtyWorker; the platform shell modules own the raw PTY handles.

LaunchSpec keeps the executable, arguments, working directory, and environment separate. Both platform shell modules use these values without a shell command string.

On Windows, PtyParts::spawn creates split ConPTY handles:

• PtyInput::write_all(&[u8]) sends command input and terminal responses.
• PtyOutput::read(&mut [u8]) blocks in ReadFile and returns Data(usize) or Eof.
• PtyControl::resize(PtySize) resizes the pseudoconsole.
• PtyControl::shutdown() closes the pseudoconsole and cleans up the child process.

The worker uses one command/control thread and one blocking output reader thread. Output events wake a retained GPUI foreground task, which applies data to the local Ghostty terminal module, drains ready chunks up to a fixed budget, and then notifies the UI. Both platform backends expose blocking reads as PtyRead::Data(usize) or PtyRead::Eof.

Development

Useful checks:

mise exec -- cargo fmt --all -- --check
mise exec -- cargo check
mise exec -- cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
mise exec -- cargo test

After changing the Ghostty submodule revision or public C headers, regenerate the private bindings. This command requires libclang:

mise exec -- cargo run --manifest-path tools/ghostty-bindings/Cargo.toml

Useful runtime shortcuts:

• Ctrl+T (Cmd+T on macOS): open a new tab, up to nine tabs.
• Ctrl+B: hide or show the tab sidebar.
• Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9: switch to an existing tab.
• Alt+Enter: split the active pane to the right.
• Alt+Shift+Enter: split the active pane downward.
• Ctrl+D: close the active pane, or close the active tab when it has one pane.
• Ctrl+Shift+C (Cmd+C on macOS): copy the active terminal selection.
• Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+V on macOS): paste with unsafe-paste confirmation.
• Ctrl+Shift+F (Cmd+F on macOS): search the full terminal scrollback.
• Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS): open the command palette.
• Cmd+Q on macOS: quit.
• Ctrl+Shift+F12: write a terminal feedback capture to captures/.

Drag with the left mouse button to select text. Double-click selects a word and triple-click selects a line using Ghostty's selection rules. Hold Ctrl+Alt while dragging for rectangular selection (Option on macOS).

Split dividers are draggable. The command palette provides directional focus, pane resize, and pane zoom actions.

Project Layout

src/
├── main.rs              # App entry point and window lifecycle
├── lib.rs               # Library module exports
├── action.rs            # Typed actions, descriptors, bindings, and menus
├── command_palette.rs   # Palette filtering and action entries
├── feedback.rs          # Feedback capture output
├── pane_container.rs    # Tabs, sidebar, workspaces, and action dispatch
├── profile.rs           # Stable profile IDs and shell launch values
├── settings.rs          # Typed settings, discovery, and safe reload
├── shell_integration.rs # Trusted shell metadata and integration setup
├── split.rs             # Binary split tree and pane geometry
├── workspace.rs         # Serializable workspace layouts
├── application/
│   ├── activation.rs    # Typed process activation requests
│   └── windows/         # Hotkey, IPC, quick terminal, and COM handoff
├── widget/
│   ├── mod.rs           # Terminal widget lifecycle and GPUI task wiring
│   ├── pty.rs           # Wake-driven PTY worker bridge
│   ├── input.rs         # GPUI key event to Ghostty key encoding
│   ├── render.rs        # Terminal cell rendering
│   ├── graphics.rs      # Kitty graphics resource cache and placement
│   ├── search.rs        # Search result projection and overlay state
│   └── capture.rs       # Terminal-state feedback snapshot
├── ghostty/
│   ├── mod.rs           # Public local Ghostty interface
│   ├── terminal.rs      # Terminal ownership and PTY callback
│   ├── selection.rs     # Ghostty selection gesture state and event bridge
│   ├── render.rs        # Snapshot and lending render iterators
│   ├── graphics.rs      # Lending Kitty graphics wrappers
│   ├── search.rs        # Incremental full-scrollback search
│   ├── semantic.rs      # Shell metadata and semantic regions
│   ├── mouse.rs         # Mouse mode and event encoding
│   ├── paste.rs         # Paste safety and bracketed encoding
│   ├── key.rs           # Key event and encoder ownership
│   ├── style.rs         # Renderer-facing colors and styles
│   ├── error.rs         # C result conversion
│   ├── abi.rs           # Target-native Rust/Zig layout audit
│   ├── bindings.version # Expected Ghostty revision/header fingerprint
│   └── ffi.rs           # Generated private C bindings
└── shell/
    ├── mod.rs           # Platform shell bridge exports
    ├── windows.rs       # Windows ConPTY implementation
    └── unix.rs          # Unix forkpty implementation
tools/
├── ghostty-bindings/    # Reproducible binding generator
└── *.ps1                # Windows package, proxy, and upgrade tools
packaging/windows/       # MSIX, AppInstaller, and COM proxy inputs
shell-integration/       # PowerShell and Bash integration resources

License

Project code is MIT-licensed. Adapted code and third-party attribution are recorded in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.