command = "/opt/homebrew/bin/fish" # default is $SHELL

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Conterm is a macOS terminal built on Ghostty's engine, adding Liquid Glass chrome, splittable panes, a multi-source ⌘K command palette, and a command center for AI coding agents like Claude Code and opencode.

Conterm is an independent frontend built on libghostty. It is not affiliated with the Ghostty project. The terminal engine (rendering, parsing, fonts, themes, shell integration) is Ghostty's; Conterm adds the macOS app around it.

_{MP4 version}

Contents

• Features
• Install
• Updating
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Configuration
• Backup & restore
• Building from source
• How it fits together
• License

Features

Panes, tabs & sessions

• Recursive split panes — ⌘D splits right, ⌘⇧D splits down, to any depth. Drag the dividers to resize; focus any pane by number with ⌥1–⌥9.
• Tabs, top or sidebar — move the tab bar to a left sidebar; it can auto-hide and slide back in when the cursor reaches the left edge.
• Tab groups — color-coded groups with inline rename, reordering, and a live list of every tab in each group; in the sidebar they fold into collapsible folders.
• Session restore — every window, tab, pane, split, and working directory comes back exactly where you left it on relaunch.
• File drops — drag a file or image onto a pane to insert its shell-quoted path at the cursor.

Command palette (⌘K)

One search over everything:

• A single query reaches app commands, shell history (re-run any zsh/bash command), your ~/.ssh/config hosts (with Include support), the active pane's recently modified files, built-in notes, and every open pane across every window.
• A live calculator in the search bar — arithmetic, 0x/0b/0o literals, re-basing (255 in hex), and unit conversions across data sizes, time, length, mass, volume, and temperature.
• A suggestion tray under the search bar: five picks ranked by how often and how recently you use them.
• Tab-group management, quick "open this directory in Finder / Cursor", and reorder or hide commands from Settings → Palette.

Agent-aware

• Status pills — a per-pane pill shows when Claude Code or opencode is ready, thinking, or needs you, with a notification center for what finished while you were away. Hooks are installed non-destructively.
• Command center (⌘⇧A) — a docked rail listing every running agent across all windows, needs you first. Each card shows its branch, the task it's working on, live cost / tokens / model, and how long since it last acted — with jump-to-pane and an inline reply / accept / interrupt. A toolbar pill appears with the running count.
• Agents layout — a third window layout whose sidebar is the live agent roster; an Add agent button opens Claude Code or opencode in a directory you pick, and a panes dropdown jumps to any open pane.
• Command markers (shell integration) — a ✓ / ✗ chip with the run time when a command fails or takes a while, a notification when a long command finishes while you've stepped away, and ⌘↑ / ⌘↓ to jump between prompts.

Updates and backups

• Automatic updates — checked from GitHub on launch; a Liquid Glass pill appears in the toolbar when a new release is out, or run Check for Updates any time. No external service involved.
• Backup & restore — save your sessions, app settings, and Conterm + Ghostty config to a single file, and restore them on another machine (Settings → Config).

Appearance

• Liquid Glass chrome (macOS 26) — refractive glass behind every surface with a Clear↔Frosted slider and light/dark tint, plus an opaque Solid mode when you want it. On macOS 14–15 the app runs fully with plain (non-glass) chrome.
• Live system stats — optional CPU / RAM / network sparklines in the tab bar, with a popover for detailed graphs.
• Scrollback search (⌘F), SSH-host detection in the pane chrome, and synthesized UI sound effects.

Install

Download the latest .dmg from the Releases page, open it, and drag Conterm.app into Applications.

First launch: Conterm is ad-hoc codesigned (open-source, not notarized through a paid Apple Developer account), so the first launch needs one step: right-click Conterm.app → Open → Open. If macOS still refuses:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Conterm.app

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later — tested through macOS 26 (Tahoe).
• Apple Silicon (M1 or later). Intel is untested.
• Liquid Glass / blur chrome requires macOS 26; on 14–15 the app is fully functional with plain chrome.

Updating

Conterm checks GitHub for new releases on launch and shows an update pill in the toolbar when one is available — click it to install and relaunch. You can also trigger it from Conterm → Check for Updates or Settings → Config, and turn the automatic check off there.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘T / ⌘N	New tab / new window
⌘W	Close active pane (or tab)
⌘D / ⌘⇧D	Split right / split down
⌥1–⌥9	Focus pane N in the current tab
⌘1–⌘9	Jump to tab N
⌘↑ / ⌘↓	Jump to previous / next prompt
⌘K	Command palette
⌘⇧A	Agent command center
⌘F	Search scrollback
⌘,	Settings
Esc	Dismiss palette / settings / search

Configuration

Conterm reads a single file: ~/.config/conterm/config, in Ghostty's config syntax. Settings → Config shows the path and offers Open / Reload / Reset actions.

Already use Ghostty? Add a one-line include so both apps share settings:

config-file = ~/.config/ghostty/config

Edits in either file then apply to both on the next reload; anything written below the include overrides Ghostty's value for Conterm only. Safe mode (Settings → Config) boots on Ghostty's built-in defaults and ignores the file — useful for recovering from a bad edit.

A few common options:

font-family = "JetBrains Mono"
font-size = 14

cursor-style = bar             # bar | block | underline
cursor-style-blink = true

background-opacity = 0.9
background-blur = 20

# command = "/opt/homebrew/bin/fish"   # default is $SHELL

Backup & restore

From Settings → Config, Back Up writes a single .contermbackup file containing your app settings, sessions, notes, tab groups, and both the Conterm and Ghostty config files. Restore reads it back and relaunches — handy when moving to a new machine.

Building from source

Requires the Swift toolchain (Command Line Tools is enough — no full Xcode):

xcode-select --install

git clone https://github.com/mahdiarfrm/conterm.git
cd conterm

bash scripts/setup.sh    # fetch GhosttyKit.xcframework
bash scripts/build.sh    # build + assemble Conterm.app
open ./Conterm.app

scripts/build.sh produces a release, arm64, ad-hoc-codesigned Conterm.app with the bundled config, terminfo, and icon.

How it fits together

Conterm is a SwiftUI + AppKit app that drives libghostty through GhosttyKit.xcframework. Each pane owns a ghostty_surface_t and the NSView it renders into; the SwiftUI layer handles tabs, splits, the palette, and the glass chrome. The terminal core — GPU rendering, parsing, fonts and ligatures, themes, and shell integration — is entirely Ghostty's.

Sources/Conterm/
  Main.swift        @main + AppDelegate, window management
  State/            tabs, pane tree, preferences, stores
  Ghostty/          libghostty Swift bridge (surfaces, input)
  UI/               SwiftUI shell: palette, tabs, chrome, effects

Contributions and issue reports are welcome on the issue tracker.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Built on libghostty; not affiliated with the Ghostty project.