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% GHOSTTY(5) Version 0.1.0-main+dd6460bc | Ghostty terminal emulator configuration file
# NAME
**ghostty** - Ghostty terminal emulator configuration file
# DESCRIPTION
To configure Ghostty, you must use a configuration file. GUI-based configuration
is on the roadmap but not yet supported. The configuration file must be placed
at `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config`, which defaults to `~/.config/ghostty/config`
if the [XDG environment is not set](https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html).
The file format is documented below as an example:
# The syntax is "key = value". The whitespace around the equals doesn't matter.
background = 282c34
foreground= ffffff
# Blank lines are ignored!
keybind = ctrl+z=close_surface
keybind = ctrl+d=new_split:right
# Colors can be changed by setting the 16 colors of `palette`, which each color
# being defined as regular and bold.
#
# black
palette = 0=#1d2021
palette = 8=#7c6f64
# red
palette = 1=#cc241d
palette = 9=#fb4934
# green
palette = 2=#98971a
palette = 10=#b8bb26
# yellow
palette = 3=#d79921
palette = 11=#fabd2f
# blue
palette = 4=#458588
palette = 12=#83a598
# purple
palette = 5=#b16286
palette = 13=#d3869b
# aqua
palette = 6=#689d6a
palette = 14=#8ec07c
# white
palette = 7=#a89984
palette = 15=#fbf1c7
You can view all available configuration options and their documentation by
executing the command `ghostty +show-config --default --docs`. Note that this will
output the full default configuration with docs to stdout, so you may want to
pipe that through a pager, an editor, etc.
Note: You'll see a lot of weird blank configurations like `font-family =`. This
is a valid syntax to specify the default behavior (no value). The `+show-config`
outputs it so it's clear that key is defaulting and also to have something to
attach the doc comment to.
You can also see and read all available configuration options in the source
Config structure. The available keys are the keys verbatim, and their possible
values are typically documented in the comments. You also can search for
the public config files of many Ghostty users for examples and inspiration.
## Configuration Errors
If your configuration file has any errors, Ghostty does its best to ignore
them and move on. Configuration errors currently show up in the log. The log
is written directly to stderr, so it is up to you to figure out how to access
that for your system (for now). On macOS, you can also use the system `log` CLI
utility. See the Mac App section for more information.
## Debugging Configuration
You can verify that configuration is being properly loaded by looking at the
debug output of Ghostty. Documentation for how to view the debug output is in
the "building Ghostty" section at the end of the README.
In the debug output, you should see in the first 20 lines or so messages about
loading (or not loading) a configuration file, as well as any errors it may have
encountered. Configuration errors are also shown in a dedicated window on both
macOS and Linux (GTK). Ghostty does not treat configuration errors as fatal and
will fall back to default values for erroneous keys.
You can also view the full configuration Ghostty is loading using `ghostty
+show-config` from the command-line. Use the `--help` flag to additional options
for that command.
# CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
**`font-family`**
: The font families to use.
You can generate the list of valid values using the CLI:
ghostty +list-fonts
This configuration can be repeated multiple times to specify preferred
fallback fonts when the requested codepoint is not available in the primary
font. This is particularly useful for multiple languages, symbolic fonts,
etc.
Notes on emoji specifically: On macOS, Ghostty by default will always use
Apple Color Emoji and on Linux will always use Noto Emoji. You can
override this behavior by specifying a font family here that contains
emoji glyphs.
The specific styles (bold, italic, bold italic) do not need to be
explicitly set. If a style is not set, then the regular style (font-family)
will be searched for stylistic variants. If a stylistic variant is not
found, Ghostty will use the regular style. This prevents falling back to a
different font family just to get a style such as bold. This also applies
if you explicitly specify a font family for a style. For example, if you
set `font-family-bold = FooBar` and "FooBar" cannot be found, Ghostty will
use whatever font is set for `font-family` for the bold style.
Finally, some styles may be synthesized if they are not supported.
For example, if a font does not have an italic style and no alternative
italic font is specified, Ghostty will synthesize an italic style by
applying a slant to the regular style. If you want to disable these
synthesized styles then you can use the `font-style` configurations
as documented below.
You can disable styles completely by using the `font-style` set of
configurations. See the documentation for `font-style` for more information.
If you want to overwrite a previous set value rather than append a fallback,
specify the value as `""` (empty string) to reset the list and then set the
new values. For example:
font-family = ""
font-family = "My Favorite Font"
Setting any of these as CLI arguments will automatically clear the
values set in configuration files so you don't need to specify
`--font-family=""` before setting a new value. You only need to specify
this within config files if you want to clear previously set values in
configuration files or on the CLI if you want to clear values set on the
CLI.
Changing this configuration at runtime will only affect new terminals, i.e.
new windows, tabs, etc.
**`font-family-bold`**
**`font-family-italic`**
**`font-family-bold-italic`**
**`font-style`**
: The named font style to use for each of the requested terminal font styles.
This looks up the style based on the font style string advertised by the
font itself. For example, "Iosevka Heavy" has a style of "Heavy".
You can also use these fields to completely disable a font style. If you set
the value of the configuration below to literal `false` then that font style
will be disabled. If the running program in the terminal requests a disabled
font style, the regular font style will be used instead.
These are only valid if its corresponding font-family is also specified. If
no font-family is specified, then the font-style is ignored unless you're
disabling the font style.
**`font-style-bold`**
**`font-style-italic`**
**`font-style-bold-italic`**
**`font-synthetic-style`**
: Control whether Ghostty should synthesize a style if the requested style is
not available in the specified font-family.
Ghostty can synthesize bold, italic, and bold italic styles if the font
does not have a specific style. For bold, this is done by drawing an
outline around the glyph of varying thickness. For italic, this is done by
applying a slant to the glyph. For bold italic, both of these are applied.
Synthetic styles are not perfect and will generally not look as good
as a font that has the style natively. However, they are useful to
provide styled text when the font does not have the style.
Set this to "false" or "true" to disable or enable synthetic styles
completely. You can disable specific styles using "no-bold", "no-italic",
and "no-bold-italic". You can disable multiple styles by separating them
with a comma. For example, "no-bold,no-italic".
Available style keys are: `bold`, `italic`, `bold-italic`.
If synthetic styles are disabled, then the regular style will be used
instead if the requested style is not available. If the font has the
requested style, then the font will be used as-is since the style is
not synthetic.
Warning: An easy mistake is to disable `bold` or `italic` but not
`bold-italic`. Disabling only `bold` or `italic` will NOT disable either
in the `bold-italic` style. If you want to disable `bold-italic`, you must
explicitly disable it. You cannot partially disable `bold-italic`.
By default, synthetic styles are enabled.
**`font-feature`**
: Apply a font feature. This can be repeated multiple times to enable multiple
font features. You can NOT set multiple font features with a single value
(yet).
The font feature will apply to all fonts rendered by Ghostty. A future
enhancement will allow targeting specific faces.
A valid value is the name of a feature. Prefix the feature with a `-` to
explicitly disable it. Example: `ss20` or `-ss20`.
To disable programming ligatures, use `-calt` since this is the typical
feature name for programming ligatures. To look into what font features
your font has and what they do, use a font inspection tool such as
[fontdrop.info](https://fontdrop.info).
To generally disable most ligatures, use `-calt`, `-liga`, and `-dlig` (as
separate repetitive entries in your config).
**`font-size`**
: Font size in points. This value can be a non-integer and the nearest integer
pixel size will be selected. If you have a high dpi display where 1pt = 2px
then you can get an odd numbered pixel size by specifying a half point.
For example, 13.5pt @ 2px/pt = 27px
Changing this configuration at runtime will only affect new terminals,
i.e. new windows, tabs, etc. Note that you may still not see the change
depending on your `window-inherit-font-size` setting. If that setting is
true, only the first window will be affected by this change since all
subsequent windows will inherit the font size of the previous window.
**`font-variation`**
: A repeatable configuration to set one or more font variations values for
a variable font. A variable font is a single font, usually with a filename
ending in `-VF.ttf` or `-VF.otf` that contains one or more configurable axes
for things such as weight, slant, etc. Not all fonts support variations;
only fonts that explicitly state they are variable fonts will work.
The format of this is `id=value` where `id` is the axis identifier. An axis
identifier is always a 4 character string, such as `wght`. To get the list
of supported axes, look at your font documentation or use a font inspection
tool.
Invalid ids and values are usually ignored. For example, if a font only
supports weights from 100 to 700, setting `wght=800` will do nothing (it
will not be clamped to 700). You must consult your font's documentation to
see what values are supported.
Common axes are: `wght` (weight), `slnt` (slant), `ital` (italic), `opsz`
(optical size), `wdth` (width), `GRAD` (gradient), etc.
**`font-variation-bold`**
**`font-variation-italic`**
**`font-variation-bold-italic`**
**`font-codepoint-map`**
: Force one or a range of Unicode codepoints to map to a specific named font.
This is useful if you want to support special symbols or if you want to use
specific glyphs that render better for your specific font.
The syntax is `codepoint=fontname` where `codepoint` is either a single
codepoint or a range. Codepoints must be specified as full Unicode
hex values, such as `U+ABCD`. Codepoints ranges are specified as
`U+ABCD-U+DEFG`. You can specify multiple ranges for the same font separated
by commas, such as `U+ABCD-U+DEFG,U+1234-U+5678=fontname`. The font name is
the same value as you would use for `font-family`.
This configuration can be repeated multiple times to specify multiple
codepoint mappings.
Changing this configuration at runtime will only affect new terminals,
i.e. new windows, tabs, etc.
**`font-thicken`**
: Draw fonts with a thicker stroke, if supported. This is only supported
currently on macOS.
**`adjust-cell-width`**
: All of the configurations behavior adjust various metrics determined by the
font. The values can be integers (1, -1, etc.) or a percentage (20%, -15%,
etc.). In each case, the values represent the amount to change the original
value.
For example, a value of `1` increases the value by 1; it does not set it to
literally 1. A value of `20%` increases the value by 20%. And so on.
There is little to no validation on these values so the wrong values (i.e.
`-100%`) can cause the terminal to be unusable. Use with caution and reason.
Some values are clamped to minimum or maximum values. This can make it
appear that certain values are ignored. For example, the underline position
is clamped to the height of a cell. If you set the underline position so
high that it extends beyond the bottom of the cell size, it will be clamped
to the bottom of the cell.
`adjust-cell-height` has some additional behaviors to describe:
* The font will be centered vertically in the cell.
* The cursor will remain the same size as the font.
* Powerline glyphs will be adjusted along with the cell height so
that things like status lines continue to look aligned.
**`adjust-cell-height`**
**`adjust-font-baseline`**
: Distance in pixels from the bottom of the cell to the text baseline.
Increase to move baseline UP, decrease to move baseline DOWN.
**`adjust-underline-position`**
: Distance in pixels from the top of the cell to the top of the underline.
Increase to move underline DOWN, decrease to move underline UP.
**`adjust-underline-thickness`**
: Thickness in pixels of the underline.
**`adjust-strikethrough-position`**
: Distance in pixels from the top of the cell to the top of the strikethrough.
Increase to move strikethrough DOWN, decrease to move underline UP.
**`adjust-strikethrough-thickness`**
: Thickness in pixels of the strikethrough.
**`adjust-overline-position`**
: Distance in pixels from the top of the cell to the top of the overline.
Increase to move overline DOWN, decrease to move underline UP.
**`adjust-overline-thickness`**
: Thickness in pixels of the overline.
**`adjust-cursor-thickness`**
: Thickness in pixels of the bar cursor and outlined rect cursor.
**`adjust-box-thickness`**
: Thickness in pixels of box drawing characters.
**`grapheme-width-method`**
: The method to use for calculating the cell width of a grapheme cluster.
The default value is `unicode` which uses the Unicode standard to determine
grapheme width. This results in correct grapheme width but may result in
cursor-desync issues with some programs (such as shells) that may use a
legacy method such as `wcswidth`.
Valid values are:
* `legacy` - Use a legacy method to determine grapheme width, such as
wcswidth This maximizes compatibility with legacy programs but may result
in incorrect grapheme width for certain graphemes such as skin-tone
emoji, non-English characters, etc.
This is called "legacy" and not something more specific because the
behavior is undefined and we want to retain the ability to modify it.
For example, we may or may not use libc `wcswidth` now or in the future.
* `unicode` - Use the Unicode standard to determine grapheme width.
If a running program explicitly enables terminal mode 2027, then `unicode`
width will be forced regardless of this configuration. When mode 2027 is
reset, this configuration will be used again.
This configuration can be changed at runtime but will not affect existing
terminals. Only new terminals will use the new configuration.
**`freetype-load-flags`**
: FreeType load flags to enable. The format of this is a list of flags to
enable separated by commas. If you prefix a flag with `no-` then it is
disabled. If you omit a flag, it's default value is used, so you must
explicitly disable flags you don't want. You can also use `true` or `false`
to turn all flags on or off.
This configuration only applies to Ghostty builds that use FreeType.
This is usually the case only for Linux builds. macOS uses CoreText
and does not have an equivalent configuration.
Available flags:
* `hinting` - Enable or disable hinting, enabled by default.
* `force-autohint` - Use the freetype auto-hinter rather than the
font's native hinter. Enabled by default.
* `monochrome` - Instructs renderer to use 1-bit monochrome
rendering. This option doesn't impact the hinter.
Enabled by default.
* `autohint` - Use the freetype auto-hinter. Enabled by default.
Example: `hinting`, `no-hinting`, `force-autohint`, `no-force-autohint`
**`theme`**
: A theme to use. This can be a built-in theme name, a custom theme
name, or an absolute path to a custom theme file. Ghostty also supports
specifying a different theme to use for light and dark mode. Each
option is documented below.
If the theme is an absolute pathname, Ghostty will attempt to load that
file as a theme. If that file does not exist or is inaccessible, an error
will be logged and no other directories will be searched.
If the theme is not an absolute pathname, two different directories will be
searched for a file name that matches the theme. This is case sensitive on
systems with case-sensitive filesystems. It is an error for a theme name to
include path separators unless it is an absolute pathname.
The first directory is the `themes` subdirectory of your Ghostty
configuration directory. This is `$XDG_CONFIG_DIR/ghostty/themes` or
`~/.config/ghostty/themes`.
The second directory is the `themes` subdirectory of the Ghostty resources
directory. Ghostty ships with a multitude of themes that will be installed
into this directory. On macOS, this list is in the `Ghostty.app/Contents/
Resources/ghostty/themes` directory. On Linux, this list is in the `share/
ghostty/themes` directory (wherever you installed the Ghostty "share"
directory.
To see a list of available themes, run `ghostty +list-themes`.
A theme file is simply another Ghostty configuration file. They share
the same syntax and same configuration options. A theme can set any valid
configuration option so please do not use a theme file from an untrusted
source. The built-in themes are audited to only set safe configuration
options.
Some options cannot be set within theme files. The reason these are not
supported should be self-evident. A theme file cannot set `theme` or
`config-file`. At the time of writing this, Ghostty will not show any
warnings or errors if you set these options in a theme file but they will
be silently ignored.
Any additional colors specified via background, foreground, palette, etc.
will override the colors specified in the theme.
To specify a different theme for light and dark mode, use the following
syntax: `light:theme-name,dark:theme-name`. For example:
`light:rose-pine-dawn,dark:rose-pine`. Whitespace around all values are
trimmed and order of light and dark does not matter. Both light and dark
must be specified in this form. In this form, the theme used will be
based on the current desktop environment theme.
There are some known bugs with light/dark mode theming. These will
be fixed in a future update:
- macOS: titlebar tabs style is not updated when switching themes.
**`background`**
: Background color for the window.
**`foreground`**
: Foreground color for the window.
**`selection-foreground`**
: The foreground and background color for selection. If this is not set, then
the selection color is just the inverted window background and foreground
(note: not to be confused with the cell bg/fg).
**`selection-background`**
**`selection-invert-fg-bg`**
: Swap the foreground and background colors of cells for selection. This
option overrides the `selection-foreground` and `selection-background`
options.
If you select across cells with differing foregrounds and backgrounds, the
selection color will vary across the selection.
**`minimum-contrast`**
: The minimum contrast ratio between the foreground and background colors.
The contrast ratio is a value between 1 and 21. A value of 1 allows for no
contrast (i.e. black on black). This value is the contrast ratio as defined
by the [WCAG 2.0 specification](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/).
If you want to avoid invisible text (same color as background), a value of
1.1 is a good value. If you want to avoid text that is difficult to read, a
value of 3 or higher is a good value. The higher the value, the more likely
that text will become black or white.
This value does not apply to Emoji or images.
**`palette`**
: Color palette for the 256 color form that many terminal applications use.
The syntax of this configuration is `N=HEXCODE` where `N` is 0 to 255 (for
the 256 colors in the terminal color table) and `HEXCODE` is a typical RGB
color code such as `#AABBCC`.
For definitions on all the codes [see this cheat
sheet](https://www.ditig.com/256-colors-cheat-sheet).
**`cursor-color`**
: The color of the cursor. If this is not set, a default will be chosen.
**`cursor-invert-fg-bg`**
: Swap the foreground and background colors of the cell under the cursor. This
option overrides the `cursor-color` and `cursor-text` options.
**`cursor-opacity`**
: The opacity level (opposite of transparency) of the cursor. A value of 1
is fully opaque and a value of 0 is fully transparent. A value less than 0
or greater than 1 will be clamped to the nearest valid value. Note that a
sufficiently small value such as 0.3 may be effectively invisible and may
make it difficult to find the cursor.
**`cursor-style`**
: The style of the cursor. This sets the default style. A running program can
still request an explicit cursor style using escape sequences (such as `CSI
q`). Shell configurations will often request specific cursor styles.
Note that shell integration will automatically set the cursor to a bar at
a prompt, regardless of this configuration. You can disable that behavior
by specifying `shell-integration-features = no-cursor` or disabling shell
integration entirely.
Valid values are:
* `block`
* `bar`
* `underline`
* `block_hollow`
**`cursor-style-blink`**
: Sets the default blinking state of the cursor. This is just the default
state; running programs may override the cursor style using `DECSCUSR` (`CSI
q`).
If this is not set, the cursor blinks by default. Note that this is not the
same as a "true" value, as noted below.
If this is not set at all (`null`), then Ghostty will respect DEC Mode 12
(AT&T cursor blink) as an alternate approach to turning blinking on/off. If
this is set to any value other than null, DEC mode 12 will be ignored but
`DECSCUSR` will still be respected.
Valid values are:
* `` (blank)
* `true`
* `false`
**`cursor-text`**
: The color of the text under the cursor. If this is not set, a default will
be chosen.
**`cursor-click-to-move`**
: Enables the ability to move the cursor at prompts by using `alt+click` on
Linux and `option+click` on macOS.
This feature requires shell integration (specifically prompt marking
via `OSC 133`) and only works in primary screen mode. Alternate screen
applications like vim usually have their own version of this feature but
this configuration doesn't control that.
It should be noted that this feature works by translating your desired
position into a series of synthetic arrow key movements, so some weird
behavior around edge cases are to be expected. This is unfortunately how
this feature is implemented across terminals because there isn't any other
way to implement it.
**`mouse-hide-while-typing`**
: Hide the mouse immediately when typing. The mouse becomes visible again
when the mouse is used (button, movement, etc.). Platform-specific behavior
may dictate other scenarios where the mouse is shown. For example on macOS,
the mouse is shown again when a new window, tab, or split is created.
**`mouse-shift-capture`**
: Determines whether running programs can detect the shift key pressed with a
mouse click. Typically, the shift key is used to extend mouse selection.
The default value of `false` means that the shift key is not sent with
the mouse protocol and will extend the selection. This value can be
conditionally overridden by the running program with the `XTSHIFTESCAPE`
sequence.
The value `true` means that the shift key is sent with the mouse protocol
but the running program can override this behavior with `XTSHIFTESCAPE`.
The value `never` is the same as `false` but the running program cannot
override this behavior with `XTSHIFTESCAPE`. The value `always` is the
same as `true` but the running program cannot override this behavior with
`XTSHIFTESCAPE`.
If you always want shift to extend mouse selection even if the program
requests otherwise, set this to `never`.
Valid values are:
* `true`
* `false`
* `always`
* `never`
**`mouse-scroll-multiplier`**
: Multiplier for scrolling distance with the mouse wheel. Any value less
than 0.01 or greater than 10,000 will be clamped to the nearest valid
value.
A value of "1" (default) scrolls te default amount. A value of "2" scrolls
double the default amount. A value of "0.5" scrolls half the default amount.
Et cetera.
**`background-opacity`**
: The opacity level (opposite of transparency) of the background. A value of
1 is fully opaque and a value of 0 is fully transparent. A value less than 0
or greater than 1 will be clamped to the nearest valid value.
On macOS, background opacity is disabled when the terminal enters native
fullscreen. This is because the background becomes gray and it can cause
widgets to show through which isn't generally desirable.
**`background-blur-radius`**
: A positive value enables blurring of the background when background-opacity
is less than 1. The value is the blur radius to apply. A value of 20
is reasonable for a good looking blur. Higher values will cause strange
rendering issues as well as performance issues.
This is only supported on macOS.
**`unfocused-split-opacity`**
: The opacity level (opposite of transparency) of an unfocused split.
Unfocused splits by default are slightly faded out to make it easier to see
which split is focused. To disable this feature, set this value to 1.
A value of 1 is fully opaque and a value of 0 is fully transparent. Because
"0" is not useful (it makes the window look very weird), the minimum value
is 0.15. This value still looks weird but you can at least see what's going
on. A value outside of the range 0.15 to 1 will be clamped to the nearest
valid value.
**`unfocused-split-fill`**
: The color to dim the unfocused split. Unfocused splits are dimmed by
rendering a semi-transparent rectangle over the split. This sets the color of
that rectangle and can be used to carefully control the dimming effect.
This will default to the background color.
**`command`**
: The command to run, usually a shell. If this is not an absolute path, it'll
be looked up in the `PATH`. If this is not set, a default will be looked up
from your system. The rules for the default lookup are:
* `SHELL` environment variable
* `passwd` entry (user information)
This can contain additional arguments to run the command with. If additional
arguments are provided, the command will be executed using `/bin/sh -c`.
Ghostty does not do any shell command parsing.
This command will be used for all new terminal surfaces, i.e. new windows,
tabs, etc. If you want to run a command only for the first terminal surface
created when Ghostty starts, use the `initial-command` configuration.
Ghostty supports the common `-e` flag for executing a command with
arguments. For example, `ghostty -e fish --with --custom --args`.
This flag sets the `initial-command` configuration, see that for more
information.
**`initial-command`**
: This is the same as "command", but only applies to the first terminal
surface created when Ghostty starts. Subsequent terminal surfaces will use
the `command` configuration.
After the first terminal surface is created (or closed), there is no
way to run this initial command again automatically. As such, setting
this at runtime works but will only affect the next terminal surface
if it is the first one ever created.
If you're using the `ghostty` CLI there is also a shortcut to set this
with arguments directly: you can use the `-e` flag. For example: `ghostty -e
fish --with --custom --args`. The `-e` flag automatically forces some
other behaviors as well:
* `gtk-single-instance=false` - This ensures that a new instance is
launched and the CLI args are respected.
* `quit-after-last-window-closed=true` - This ensures that the Ghostty
process will exit when the command exits. Additionally, the
`quit-after-last-window-closed-delay` is unset.
* `shell-integration=detect` (if not `none`) - This prevents forcibly
injecting any configured shell integration into the command's
environment. With `-e` its highly unlikely that you're executing a
shell and forced shell integration is likely to cause problems
(i.e. by wrapping your command in a shell, setting env vars, etc.).
This is a safety measure to prevent unexpected behavior. If you want
shell integration with a `-e`-executed command, you must either
name your binary appopriately or source the shell integration script
manually.
**`wait-after-command`**
: If true, keep the terminal open after the command exits. Normally, the
terminal window closes when the running command (such as a shell) exits.
With this true, the terminal window will stay open until any keypress is
received.
This is primarily useful for scripts or debugging.
**`abnormal-command-exit-runtime`**
: The number of milliseconds of runtime below which we consider a process exit
to be abnormal. This is used to show an error message when the process exits
too quickly.
On Linux, this must be paired with a non-zero exit code. On macOS, we allow
any exit code because of the way shell processes are launched via the login
command.
**`scrollback-limit`**
: The size of the scrollback buffer in bytes. This also includes the active
screen. No matter what this is set to, enough memory will always be
allocated for the visible screen and anything leftover is the limit for
the scrollback.
When this limit is reached, the oldest lines are removed from the
scrollback.
Scrollback currently exists completely in memory. This means that the
larger this value, the larger potential memory usage. Scrollback is
allocated lazily up to this limit, so if you set this to a very large
value, it will not immediately consume a lot of memory.
This size is per terminal surface, not for the entire application.
It is not currently possible to set an unlimited scrollback buffer.
This is a future planned feature.
This can be changed at runtime but will only affect new terminal surfaces.
**`link`**
: Match a regular expression against the terminal text and associate clicking
it with an action. This can be used to match URLs, file paths, etc. Actions
can be opening using the system opener (i.e. `open` or `xdg-open`) or
executing any arbitrary binding action.
Links that are configured earlier take precedence over links that are
configured later.
A default link that matches a URL and opens it in the system opener always
exists. This can be disabled using `link-url`.
TODO: This can't currently be set!
**`link-url`**
: Enable URL matching. URLs are matched on hover with control (Linux) or
super (macOS) pressed and open using the default system application for
the linked URL.
The URL matcher is always lowest priority of any configured links (see
`link`). If you want to customize URL matching, use `link` and disable this.
**`fullscreen`**
: Start new windows in fullscreen. This setting applies to new windows and
does not apply to tabs, splits, etc. However, this setting will apply to all
new windows, not just the first one.
On macOS, this setting does not work if window-decoration is set to
"false", because native fullscreen on macOS requires window decorations
to be set.
**`title`**
: The title Ghostty will use for the window. This will force the title of the
window to be this title at all times and Ghostty will ignore any set title
escape sequences programs (such as Neovim) may send.
If you want a blank title, set this to one or more spaces by quoting
the value. For example, `title = " "`. This effectively hides the title.
This is necessary because setting a blank value resets the title to the
default value of the running program.
This configuration can be reloaded at runtime. If it is set, the title
will update for all windows. If it is unset, the next title change escape
sequence will be honored but previous changes will not retroactively
be set. This latter case may require you restart programs such as neovim
to get the new title.
**`class`**
: The setting that will change the application class value.
This controls the class field of the `WM_CLASS` X11 property (when running
under X11), and the Wayland application ID (when running under Wayland).
Note that changing this value between invocations will create new, separate
instances, of Ghostty when running with `gtk-single-instance=true`. See that
option for more details.
The class name must follow the requirements defined [in the GTK
documentation](https://docs.gtk.org/gio/type_func.Application.id_is_valid.html).
The default is `com.mitchellh.ghostty`.
This only affects GTK builds.
**`x11-instance-name`**
: This controls the instance name field of the `WM_CLASS` X11 property when
running under X11. It has no effect otherwise.
The default is `ghostty`.
This only affects GTK builds.
**`working-directory`**
: The directory to change to after starting the command.
This setting is secondary to the `window-inherit-working-directory`
setting. If a previous Ghostty terminal exists in the same process,
`window-inherit-working-directory` will take precedence. Otherwise, this
setting will be used. Typically, this setting is used only for the first
window.
The default is `inherit` except in special scenarios listed next. On macOS,
if Ghostty can detect it is launched from launchd (double-clicked) or
`open`, then it defaults to `home`. On Linux with GTK, if Ghostty can detect
it was launched from a desktop launcher, then it defaults to `home`.
The value of this must be an absolute value or one of the special values
below:
* `home` - The home directory of the executing user.
* `inherit` - The working directory of the launching process.
**`keybind`**
: Key bindings. The format is `trigger=action`. Duplicate triggers will
overwrite previously set values. The list of actions is available in
the documentation or using the `ghostty +list-actions` command.
Trigger: `+`-separated list of keys and modifiers. Example: `ctrl+a`,
`ctrl+shift+b`, `up`. Some notes:
* modifiers cannot repeat, `ctrl+ctrl+a` is invalid.
* modifiers and keys can be in any order, `shift+a+ctrl` is *weird*,
but valid.
* only a single key input is allowed, `ctrl+a+b` is invalid.
* the key input can be prefixed with `physical:` to specify a
physical key mapping rather than a logical one. A physical key
mapping responds to the hardware keycode and not the keycode
translated by any system keyboard layouts. Example: "ctrl+physical:a"
Valid modifiers are `shift`, `ctrl` (alias: `control`), `alt` (alias: `opt`,
`option`), and `super` (alias: `cmd`, `command`). You may use the modifier
or the alias. When debugging keybinds, the non-aliased modifier will always
be used in output.
Note: The fn or "globe" key on keyboards are not supported as a
modifier. This is a limitation of the operating systems and GUI toolkits
that Ghostty uses.
You may also specify multiple triggers separated by `>` to require a
sequence of triggers to activate the action. For example,
`ctrl+a>n=new_window` will only trigger the `new_window` action if the
user presses `ctrl+a` followed separately by `n`. In other software, this
is sometimes called a leader key, a key chord, a key table, etc. There
is no hardcoded limit on the number of parts in a sequence.
Warning: If you define a sequence as a CLI argument to `ghostty`,
you probably have to quote the keybind since `>` is a special character
in most shells. Example: ghostty --keybind='ctrl+a>n=new_window'
A trigger sequence has some special handling:
* Ghostty will wait an indefinite amount of time for the next key in
the sequence. There is no way to specify a timeout. The only way to
force the output of a prefix key is to assign another keybind to
specifically output that key (i.e. `ctrl+a>ctrl+a=text:foo`) or
press an unbound key which will send both keys to the program.
* If a prefix in a sequence is previously bound, the sequence will
override the previous binding. For example, if `ctrl+a` is bound to
`new_window` and `ctrl+a>n` is bound to `new_tab`, pressing `ctrl+a`
will do nothing.
* Adding to the above, if a previously bound sequence prefix is
used in a new, non-sequence binding, the entire previously bound
sequence will be unbound. For example, if you bind `ctrl+a>n` and
`ctrl+a>t`, and then bind `ctrl+a` directly, both `ctrl+a>n` and
`ctrl+a>t` will become unbound.
* Trigger sequences are not allowed for `global:` or `all:`-prefixed
triggers. This is a limitation we could remove in the future.
Action is the action to take when the trigger is satisfied. It takes the
format `action` or `action:param`. The latter form is only valid if the
action requires a parameter.
* `ignore` - Do nothing, ignore the key input. This can be used to
black hole certain inputs to have no effect.
* `unbind` - Remove the binding. This makes it so the previous action
is removed, and the key will be sent through to the child command
if it is printable.
* `csi:text` - Send a CSI sequence. i.e. `csi:A` sends "cursor up".
* `esc:text` - Send an escape sequence. i.e. `esc:d` deletes to the
end of the word to the right.
* `text:text` - Send a string. Uses Zig string literal syntax.
i.e. `text:\x15` sends Ctrl-U.
* All other actions can be found in the documentation or by using the
`ghostty +list-actions` command.
Some notes for the action:
* The parameter is taken as-is after the `:`. Double quotes or
other mechanisms are included and NOT parsed. If you want to
send a string value that includes spaces, wrap the entire
trigger/action in double quotes. Example: `--keybind="up=csi:A B"`
There are some additional special values that can be specified for
keybind:
* `keybind=clear` will clear all set keybindings. Warning: this
removes ALL keybindings up to this point, including the default
keybindings.
The keybind trigger can be prefixed with some special values to change
the behavior of the keybind. These are:
* `all:` - Make the keybind apply to all terminal surfaces. By default,
keybinds only apply to the focused terminal surface. If this is true,
then the keybind will be sent to all terminal surfaces. This only
applies to actions that are surface-specific. For actions that
are already global (i.e. `quit`), this prefix has no effect.
* `global:` - Make the keybind global. By default, keybinds only work
within Ghostty and under the right conditions (application focused,
sometimes terminal focused, etc.). If you want a keybind to work
globally across your system (i.e. even when Ghostty is not focused),
specify this prefix. This prefix implies `all:`. Note: this does not
work in all environments; see the additional notes below for more
information.
* `unconsumed:` - Do not consume the input. By default, a keybind
will consume the input, meaning that the associated encoding (if
any) will not be sent to the running program in the terminal. If
you wish to send the encoded value to the program, specify the
`unconsumed:` prefix before the entire keybind. For example:
`unconsumed:ctrl+a=reload_config`. `global:` and `all:`-prefixed
keybinds will always consume the input regardless of this setting.
Since they are not associated with a specific terminal surface,
they're never encoded.
Keybind triggers are not unique per prefix combination. For example,
`ctrl+a` and `global:ctrl+a` are not two separate keybinds. The keybind
set later will overwrite the keybind set earlier. In this case, the
`global:` keybind will be used.
Multiple prefixes can be specified. For example,
`global:unconsumed:ctrl+a=reload_config` will make the keybind global
and not consume the input to reload the config.
Note: `global:` is only supported on macOS. On macOS,
this feature requires accessibility permissions to be granted to Ghostty.
When a `global:` keybind is specified and Ghostty is launched or reloaded,
Ghostty will attempt to request these permissions. If the permissions are
not granted, the keybind will not work. On macOS, you can find these
permissions in System Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility.
**`window-padding-x`**
: Horizontal window padding. This applies padding between the terminal cells
and the left and right window borders. The value is in points, meaning that
it will be scaled appropriately for screen DPI.
If this value is set too large, the screen will render nothing, because the
grid will be completely squished by the padding. It is up to you as the user
to pick a reasonable value. If you pick an unreasonable value, a warning
will appear in the logs.
Changing this configuration at runtime will only affect new terminals, i.e.
new windows, tabs, etc.
To set a different left and right padding, specify two numerical values
separated by a comma. For example, `window-padding-x = 2,4` will set the
left padding to 2 and the right padding to 4. If you want to set both
paddings to the same value, you can use a single value. For example,
`window-padding-x = 2` will set both paddings to 2.
**`window-padding-y`**
: Vertical window padding. This applies padding between the terminal cells and
the top and bottom window borders. The value is in points, meaning that it
will be scaled appropriately for screen DPI.
If this value is set too large, the screen will render nothing, because the
grid will be completely squished by the padding. It is up to you as the user
to pick a reasonable value. If you pick an unreasonable value, a warning
will appear in the logs.
Changing this configuration at runtime will only affect new terminals,
i.e. new windows, tabs, etc.
To set a different top and bottom padding, specify two numerical values
separated by a comma. For example, `window-padding-y = 2,4` will set the
top padding to 2 and the bottom padding to 4. If you want to set both
paddings to the same value, you can use a single value. For example,
`window-padding-y = 2` will set both paddings to 2.
**`window-padding-balance`**
: The viewport dimensions are usually not perfectly divisible by the cell
size. In this case, some extra padding on the end of a column and the bottom
of the final row may exist. If this is `true`, then this extra padding
is automatically balanced between all four edges to minimize imbalance on
one side. If this is `false`, the top left grid cell will always hug the
edge with zero padding other than what may be specified with the other
`window-padding` options.
If other `window-padding` fields are set and this is `true`, this will still
apply. The other padding is applied first and may affect how many grid cells
actually exist, and this is applied last in order to balance the padding
given a certain viewport size and grid cell size.
**`window-padding-color`**
: The color of the padding area of the window. Valid values are:
* `background` - The background color specified in `background`.
* `extend` - Extend the background color of the nearest grid cell.
* `extend-always` - Same as "extend" but always extends without applying
any of the heuristics that disable extending noted below.
The "extend" value will be disabled in certain scenarios. On primary
screen applications (i.e. not something like Neovim), the color will not
be extended vertically if any of the following are true:
* The nearest row has any cells that have the default background color.
The thinking is that in this case, the default background color looks
fine as a padding color.
* The nearest row is a prompt row (requires shell integration). The
thinking here is that prompts often contain powerline glyphs that
do not look good extended.
* The nearest row contains a perfect fit powerline character. These
don't look good extended.
**`window-vsync`**
: Synchronize rendering with the screen refresh rate. If true, this will
minimize tearing and align redraws with the screen but may cause input
latency. If false, this will maximize redraw frequency but may cause tearing,
and under heavy load may use more CPU and power.
This defaults to true because out-of-sync rendering on macOS can
cause kernel panics (macOS 14.4+) and performance issues for external
displays over some hardware such as DisplayLink. If you want to minimize
input latency, set this to false with the known aforementioned risks.
Changing this value at runtime will only affect new terminals.
This setting is only supported currently on macOS.
**`window-inherit-working-directory`**
: If true, new windows and tabs will inherit the working directory of the
previously focused window. If no window was previously focused, the default
working directory will be used (the `working-directory` option).
**`window-inherit-font-size`**
: If true, new windows and tabs will inherit the font size of the previously
focused window. If no window was previously focused, the default font size
will be used. If this is false, the default font size specified in the
configuration `font-size` will be used.
**`window-decoration`**
: Valid values:
* `true`
* `false` - windows won't have native decorations, i.e. titlebar and
borders. On macOS this also disables tabs and tab overview.
The "toggle_window_decorations" keybind action can be used to create
a keybinding to toggle this setting at runtime.
Changing this configuration in your configuration and reloading will
only affect new windows. Existing windows will not be affected.
macOS: To hide the titlebar without removing the native window borders
or rounded corners, use `macos-titlebar-style = hidden` instead.
**`window-title-font-family`**
: The font that will be used for the application's window and tab titles.
This is currently only supported on macOS.
**`window-theme`**
: The theme to use for the windows. Valid values:
* `auto` - Determine the theme based on the configured terminal
background color. This has no effect if the "theme" configuration
has separate light and dark themes. In that case, the behavior
of "auto" is equivalent to "system".
* `system` - Use the system theme.
* `light` - Use the light theme regardless of system theme.
* `dark` - Use the dark theme regardless of system theme.
* `ghostty` - Use the background and foreground colors specified in the
Ghostty configuration. This is only supported on Linux builds with
Adwaita and `gtk-adwaita` enabled.
On macOS, if `macos-titlebar-style` is "tabs", the window theme will be
automatically set based on the luminosity of the terminal background color.
This only applies to terminal windows. This setting will still apply to
non-terminal windows within Ghostty.
This is currently only supported on macOS and Linux.
**`window-colorspace`**
: The colorspace to use for the terminal window. The default is `srgb` but
this can also be set to `display-p3` to use the Display P3 colorspace.
Changing this value at runtime will only affect new windows.
This setting is only supported on macOS.
**`window-height`**
: The initial window size. This size is in terminal grid cells by default.
Both values must be set to take effect. If only one value is set, it is
ignored.
We don't currently support specifying a size in pixels but a future change
can enable that. If this isn't specified, the app runtime will determine
some default size.
Note that the window manager may put limits on the size or override the
size. For example, a tiling window manager may force the window to be a
certain size to fit within the grid. There is nothing Ghostty will do about
this, but it will make an effort.
Sizes larger than the screen size will be clamped to the screen size.
This can be used to create a maximized-by-default window size.
This will not affect new tabs, splits, or other nested terminal elements.
This only affects the initial window size of any new window. Changing this
value will not affect the size of the window after it has been created. This
is only used for the initial size.
BUG: On Linux with GTK, the calculated window size will not properly take
into account window decorations. As a result, the grid dimensions will not
exactly match this configuration. If window decorations are disabled (see
window-decorations), then this will work as expected.
Windows smaller than 10 wide by 4 high are not allowed.
**`window-width`**
**`window-save-state`**
: Whether to enable saving and restoring window state. Window state includes
their position, size, tabs, splits, etc. Some window state requires shell
integration, such as preserving working directories. See `shell-integration`
for more information.
There are three valid values for this configuration:
* `default` will use the default system behavior. On macOS, this
will only save state if the application is forcibly terminated
or if it is configured systemwide via Settings.app.
* `never` will never save window state.
* `always` will always save window state whenever Ghostty is exited.
If you change this value to `never` while Ghostty is not running, the next
Ghostty launch will NOT restore the window state.
If you change this value to `default` while Ghostty is not running and the
previous exit saved state, the next Ghostty launch will still restore the
window state. This is because Ghostty cannot know if the previous exit was
due to a forced save or not (macOS doesn't provide this information).
If you change this value so that window state is saved while Ghostty is not
running, the previous window state will not be restored because Ghostty only
saves state on exit if this is enabled.
The default value is `default`.
This is currently only supported on macOS. This has no effect on Linux.
**`window-step-resize`**
: Resize the window in discrete increments of the focused surface's cell size.
If this is disabled, surfaces are resized in pixel increments. Currently
only supported on macOS.
**`window-new-tab-position`**
: The position where new tabs are created. Valid values:
* `current` - Insert the new tab after the currently focused tab,
or at the end if there are no focused tabs.
* `end` - Insert the new tab at the end of the tab list.
**`resize-overlay`**
: This controls when resize overlays are shown. Resize overlays are a
transient popup that shows the size of the terminal while the surfaces are
being resized. The possible options are:
* `always` - Always show resize overlays.
* `never` - Never show resize overlays.
* `after-first` - The resize overlay will not appear when the surface
is first created, but will show up if the surface is
subsequently resized.
The default is `after-first`.
**`resize-overlay-position`**
: If resize overlays are enabled, this controls the position of the overlay.
The possible options are:
* `center`
* `top-left`
* `top-center`
* `top-right`
* `bottom-left`
* `bottom-center`
* `bottom-right`
The default is `center`.
**`resize-overlay-duration`**
: If resize overlays are enabled, this controls how long the overlay is
visible on the screen before it is hidden. The default is ¾ of a second or
750 ms.
The duration is specified as a series of numbers followed by time units.
Whitespace is allowed between numbers and units. Each number and unit will
be added together to form the total duration.
The allowed time units are as follows:
* `y` - 365 SI days, or 8760 hours, or 31536000 seconds. No adjustments
are made for leap years or leap seconds.
* `d` - one SI day, or 86400 seconds.
* `h` - one hour, or 3600 seconds.
* `m` - one minute, or 60 seconds.
* `s` - one second.
* `ms` - one millisecond, or 0.001 second.
* `us` or `µs` - one microsecond, or 0.000001 second.
* `ns` - one nanosecond, or 0.000000001 second.
Examples:
* `1h30m`
* `45s`
Units can be repeated and will be added together. This means that
`1h1h` is equivalent to `2h`. This is confusing and should be avoided.
A future update may disallow this.
The maximum value is `584y 49w 23h 34m 33s 709ms 551µs 615ns`. Any
value larger than this will be clamped to the maximum value.
**`focus-follows-mouse`**
**`clipboard-read`**
: Whether to allow programs running in the terminal to read/write to the
system clipboard (OSC 52, for googling). The default is to allow clipboard
reading after prompting the user and allow writing unconditionally.
Valid values are:
* `ask`
* `allow`
* `deny`
**`clipboard-write`**
**`clipboard-trim-trailing-spaces`**
: Trims trailing whitespace on data that is copied to the clipboard. This does
not affect data sent to the clipboard via `clipboard-write`.
**`clipboard-paste-protection`**
: Require confirmation before pasting text that appears unsafe. This helps
prevent a "copy/paste attack" where a user may accidentally execute unsafe
commands by pasting text with newlines.
**`clipboard-paste-bracketed-safe`**
: If true, bracketed pastes will be considered safe. By default, bracketed
pastes are considered safe. "Bracketed" pastes are pastes while the running
program has bracketed paste mode enabled (a setting set by the running
program, not the terminal emulator).
**`image-storage-limit`**
: The total amount of bytes that can be used for image data (i.e. the Kitty
image protocol) per terminal screen. The maximum value is 4,294,967,295
(4GiB). The default is 320MB. If this is set to zero, then all image
protocols will be disabled.
This value is separate for primary and alternate screens so the effective
limit per surface is double.
**`copy-on-select`**
: Whether to automatically copy selected text to the clipboard. `true`
will prefer to copy to the selection clipboard if supported by the
OS, otherwise it will copy to the system clipboard.
The value `clipboard` will always copy text to the selection clipboard
(for supported systems) as well as the system clipboard. This is sometimes
a preferred behavior on Linux.
Middle-click paste will always use the selection clipboard on Linux
and the system clipboard on macOS. Middle-click paste is always enabled
even if this is `false`.
The default value is true on Linux and false on macOS. macOS copy on
select behavior is not typical for applications so it is disabled by
default. On Linux, this is a standard behavior so it is enabled by
default.
**`click-repeat-interval`**
: The time in milliseconds between clicks to consider a click a repeat
(double, triple, etc.) or an entirely new single click. A value of zero will
use a platform-specific default. The default on macOS is determined by the
OS settings. On every other platform it is 500ms.
**`config-file`**
: Additional configuration files to read. This configuration can be repeated
to read multiple configuration files. Configuration files themselves can
load more configuration files. Paths are relative to the file containing the
`config-file` directive. For command-line arguments, paths are relative to
the current working directory.
Prepend a ? character to the file path to suppress errors if the file does
not exist. If you want to include a file that begins with a literal ?
character, surround the file path in double quotes (").
Cycles are not allowed. If a cycle is detected, an error will be logged and
the configuration file will be ignored.
Configuration files are loaded after the configuration they're defined
within in the order they're defined. **THIS IS A VERY SUBTLE BUT IMPORTANT
POINT.** To put it another way: configuration files do not take effect
until after the entire configuration is loaded. For example, in the
configuration below:
```
config-file = "foo"
a = 1
```
If "foo" contains `a = 2`, the final value of `a` will be 2, because
`foo` is loaded after the configuration file that configures the
nested `config-file` value.
**`config-default-files`**
: When this is true, the default configuration file paths will be loaded.
The default configuration file paths are currently only the XDG
config path ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config).
If this is false, the default configuration paths will not be loaded.
This is targeted directly at using Ghostty from the CLI in a way
that minimizes external effects.
This is a CLI-only configuration. Setting this in a configuration file
will have no effect. It is not an error, but it will not do anything.
This configuration can only be set via CLI arguments.
**`confirm-close-surface`**
: Confirms that a surface should be closed before closing it. This defaults to
true. If set to false, surfaces will close without any confirmation.
**`quit-after-last-window-closed`**
: Whether or not to quit after the last surface is closed.
This defaults to `false` on macOS since that is standard behavior for
a macOS application. On Linux, this defaults to `true` since that is
generally expected behavior.
On Linux, if this is `true`, Ghostty can delay quitting fully until a
configurable amount of time has passed after the last window is closed.
See the documentation of `quit-after-last-window-closed-delay`.
**`quit-after-last-window-closed-delay`**
: Controls how long Ghostty will stay running after the last open surface has
been closed. This only has an effect if `quit-after-last-window-closed` is
also set to `true`.
The minimum value for this configuration is `1s`. Any values lower than
this will be clamped to `1s`.
The duration is specified as a series of numbers followed by time units.
Whitespace is allowed between numbers and units. Each number and unit will
be added together to form the total duration.
The allowed time units are as follows:
* `y` - 365 SI days, or 8760 hours, or 31536000 seconds. No adjustments
are made for leap years or leap seconds.
* `d` - one SI day, or 86400 seconds.
* `h` - one hour, or 3600 seconds.
* `m` - one minute, or 60 seconds.
* `s` - one second.
* `ms` - one millisecond, or 0.001 second.
* `us` or `µs` - one microsecond, or 0.000001 second.
* `ns` - one nanosecond, or 0.000000001 second.
Examples:
* `1h30m`
* `45s`
Units can be repeated and will be added together. This means that
`1h1h` is equivalent to `2h`. This is confusing and should be avoided.
A future update may disallow this.
The maximum value is `584y 49w 23h 34m 33s 709ms 551µs 615ns`. Any
value larger than this will be clamped to the maximum value.
By default `quit-after-last-window-closed-delay` is unset and
Ghostty will quit immediately after the last window is closed if
`quit-after-last-window-closed` is `true`.
Only implemented on Linux.
**`initial-window`**
: This controls whether an initial window is created when Ghostty
is run. Note that if `quit-after-last-window-closed` is `true` and
`quit-after-last-window-closed-delay` is set, setting `initial-window` to
`false` will mean that Ghostty will quit after the configured delay if no
window is ever created. Only implemented on Linux and macOS.
**`quick-terminal-position`**
: The position of the "quick" terminal window. To learn more about the
quick terminal, see the documentation for the `toggle_quick_terminal`
binding action.
Valid values are:
* `top` - Terminal appears at the top of the screen.
* `bottom` - Terminal appears at the bottom of the screen.
* `left` - Terminal appears at the left of the screen.
* `right` - Terminal appears at the right of the screen.
Changing this configuration requires restarting Ghostty completely.
**`quick-terminal-screen`**
: The screen where the quick terminal should show up.
Valid values are:
* `main` - The screen that the operating system recommends as the main
screen. On macOS, this is the screen that is currently receiving
keyboard input. This screen is defined by the operating system and
not chosen by Ghostty.
* `mouse` - The screen that the mouse is currently hovered over.
* `macos-menu-bar` - The screen that contains the macOS menu bar as
set in the display settings on macOS. This is a bit confusing because
every screen on macOS has a menu bar, but this is the screen that
contains the primary menu bar.
The default value is `main` because this is the recommended screen
by the operating system.
**`quick-terminal-animation-duration`**
: Duration (in seconds) of the quick terminal enter and exit animation.
Set it to 0 to disable animation completely. This can be changed at
runtime.
**`shell-integration`**
: Whether to enable shell integration auto-injection or not. Shell integration
greatly enhances the terminal experience by enabling a number of features:
* Working directory reporting so new tabs, splits inherit the
previous terminal's working directory.
* Prompt marking that enables the "jump_to_prompt" keybinding.
* If you're sitting at a prompt, closing a terminal will not ask
for confirmation.
* Resizing the window with a complex prompt usually paints much
better.
Allowable values are:
* `none` - Do not do any automatic injection. You can still manually
configure your shell to enable the integration.
* `detect` - Detect the shell based on the filename.
* `bash`, `elvish`, `fish`, `zsh` - Use this specific shell injection scheme.
The default value is `detect`.
**`shell-integration-features`**
: Shell integration features to enable if shell integration itself is enabled.
The format of this is a list of features to enable separated by commas. If
you prefix a feature with `no-` then it is disabled. If you omit a feature,
its default value is used, so you must explicitly disable features you don't
want. You can also use `true` or `false` to turn all features on or off.
Available features:
* `cursor` - Set the cursor to a blinking bar at the prompt.
* `sudo` - Set sudo wrapper to preserve terminfo.
* `title` - Set the window title via shell integration.
Example: `cursor`, `no-cursor`, `sudo`, `no-sudo`, `title`, `no-title`
**`osc-color-report-format`**
: Sets the reporting format for OSC sequences that request color information.
Ghostty currently supports OSC 10 (foreground), OSC 11 (background), and
OSC 4 (256 color palette) queries, and by default the reported values
are scaled-up RGB values, where each component are 16 bits. This is how
most terminals report these values. However, some legacy applications may
require 8-bit, unscaled, components. We also support turning off reporting
altogether. The components are lowercase hex values.
Allowable values are:
* `none` - OSC 4/10/11 queries receive no reply
* `8-bit` - Color components are return unscaled, i.e. `rr/gg/bb`
* `16-bit` - Color components are returned scaled, e.g. `rrrr/gggg/bbbb`
The default value is `16-bit`.
**`vt-kam-allowed`**
: If true, allows the "KAM" mode (ANSI mode 2) to be used within
the terminal. KAM disables keyboard input at the request of the
application. This is not a common feature and is not recommended
to be enabled. This will not be documented further because
if you know you need KAM, you know. If you don't know if you
need KAM, you don't need it.
**`custom-shader`**
: Custom shaders to run after the default shaders. This is a file path
to a GLSL-syntax shader for all platforms.
Warning: Invalid shaders can cause Ghostty to become unusable such as by
causing the window to be completely black. If this happens, you can
unset this configuration to disable the shader.
On Linux, this requires OpenGL 4.2. Ghostty typically only requires
OpenGL 3.3, but custom shaders push that requirement up to 4.2.
The shader API is identical to the Shadertoy API: you specify a `mainImage`
function and the available uniforms match Shadertoy. The iChannel0 uniform
is a texture containing the rendered terminal screen.
If the shader fails to compile, the shader will be ignored. Any errors
related to shader compilation will not show up as configuration errors
and only show up in the log, since shader compilation happens after
configuration loading on the dedicated render thread. For interactive
development, use [shadertoy.com](https://shadertoy.com).
This can be repeated multiple times to load multiple shaders. The shaders
will be run in the order they are specified.
Changing this value at runtime and reloading the configuration will only
affect new windows, tabs, and splits.
**`custom-shader-animation`**
: If `true` (default), the focused terminal surface will run an animation
loop when custom shaders are used. This uses slightly more CPU (generally
less than 10%) but allows the shader to animate. This only runs if there
are custom shaders and the terminal is focused.
If this is set to `false`, the terminal and custom shader will only render
when the terminal is updated. This is more efficient but the shader will
not animate.
This can also be set to `always`, which will always run the animation
loop regardless of whether the terminal is focused or not. The animation
loop will still only run when custom shaders are used. Note that this
will use more CPU per terminal surface and can become quite expensive
depending on the shader and your terminal usage.
This value can be changed at runtime and will affect all currently
open terminals.
**`macos-non-native-fullscreen`**
: If anything other than false, fullscreen mode on macOS will not use the
native fullscreen, but make the window fullscreen without animations and
using a new space. It's faster than the native fullscreen mode since it
doesn't use animations.
Important: tabs DO NOT WORK in this mode. Non-native fullscreen removes
the titlebar and macOS native tabs require the titlebar. If you use tabs,
you should not use this mode.
If you fullscreen a window with tabs, the currently focused tab will
become fullscreen while the others will remain in a separate window in
the background. You can switch to that window using normal window-switching
keybindings such as command+tilde. When you exit fullscreen, the window
will return to the tabbed state it was in before.
Allowable values are:
* `visible-menu` - Use non-native macOS fullscreen, keep the menu bar visible
* `true` - Use non-native macOS fullscreen, hide the menu bar
* `false` - Use native macOS fullscreen
Changing this option at runtime works, but will only apply to the next
time the window is made fullscreen. If a window is already fullscreen,
it will retain the previous setting until fullscreen is exited.
**`macos-titlebar-style`**
: The style of the macOS titlebar. Available values are: "native",
"transparent", "tabs", and "hidden".
The "native" style uses the native macOS titlebar with zero customization.
The titlebar will match your window theme (see `window-theme`).
The "transparent" style is the same as "native" but the titlebar will
be transparent and allow your window background color to come through.
This makes a more seamless window appearance but looks a little less
typical for a macOS application and may not work well with all themes.
The "transparent" style will also update in real-time to dynamic
changes to the window background color, i.e. via OSC 11. To make this
more aesthetically pleasing, this only happens if the terminal is
a window, tab, or split that borders the top of the window. This
avoids a disjointed appearance where the titlebar color changes
but all the topmost terminals don't match.
The "tabs" style is a completely custom titlebar that integrates the
tab bar into the titlebar. This titlebar always matches the background
color of the terminal. There are some limitations to this style:
On macOS 13 and below, saved window state will not restore tabs correctly.
macOS 14 does not have this issue and any other macOS version has not
been tested.
The "hidden" style hides the titlebar. Unlike `window-decoration = false`,
however, it does not remove the frame from the window or cause it to have
squared corners. Changing to or from this option at run-time may affect
existing windows in buggy ways. The top titlebar area of the window will
continue to drag the window around and you will not be able to use
the mouse for terminal events in this space.
The default value is "transparent". This is an opinionated choice
but its one I think is the most aesthetically pleasing and works in
most cases.
Changing this option at runtime only applies to new windows.
**`macos-titlebar-proxy-icon`**
: Whether the proxy icon in the macOS titlebar is visible. The proxy icon
is the icon that represents the folder of the current working directory.
You can see this very clearly in the macOS built-in Terminal.app
titlebar.
The proxy icon is only visible with the native macOS titlebar style.
Valid values are:
* `visible` - Show the proxy icon.
* `hidden` - Hide the proxy icon.
The default value is `visible`.
This setting can be changed at runtime and will affect all currently
open windows but only after their working directory changes again.
Therefore, to make this work after changing the setting, you must
usually `cd` to a different directory, open a different file in an
editor, etc.
**`macos-option-as-alt`**
: macOS doesn't have a distinct "alt" key and instead has the "option"
key which behaves slightly differently. On macOS by default, the
option key plus a character will sometimes produces a Unicode character.
For example, on US standard layouts option-b produces "∫". This may be
undesirable if you want to use "option" as an "alt" key for keybindings
in terminal programs or shells.
This configuration lets you change the behavior so that option is treated
as alt.
The default behavior (unset) will depend on your active keyboard
layout. If your keyboard layout is one of the keyboard layouts listed
below, then the default value is "true". Otherwise, the default
value is "false". Keyboard layouts with a default value of "true" are:
- U.S. Standard
- U.S. International
Note that if an *Option*-sequence doesn't produce a printable character, it
will be treated as *Alt* regardless of this setting. (i.e. `alt+ctrl+a`).
Explicit values that can be set:
If `true`, the *Option* key will be treated as *Alt*. This makes terminal
sequences expecting *Alt* to work properly, but will break Unicode input
sequences on macOS if you use them via the *Alt* key.
You may set this to `false` to restore the macOS *Alt* key unicode
sequences but this will break terminal sequences expecting *Alt* to work.
The values `left` or `right` enable this for the left or right *Option*
key, respectively.
This does not work with GLFW builds.
**`macos-window-shadow`**
: Whether to enable the macOS window shadow. The default value is true.
With some window managers and window transparency settings, you may
find false more visually appealing.
**`macos-auto-secure-input`**
: If true, Ghostty on macOS will automatically enable the "Secure Input"
feature when it detects that a password prompt is being displayed.
"Secure Input" is a macOS security feature that prevents applications from
reading keyboard events. This can always be enabled manually using the
`Ghostty > Secure Keyboard Entry` menu item.
Note that automatic password prompt detection is based on heuristics
and may not always work as expected. Specifically, it does not work
over SSH connections, but there may be other cases where it also
doesn't work.
A reason to disable this feature is if you find that it is interfering
with legitimate accessibility software (or software that uses the
accessibility APIs), since secure input prevents any application from
reading keyboard events.
**`macos-secure-input-indication`**
: If true, Ghostty will show a graphical indication when secure input is
enabled. This indication is generally recommended to know when secure input
is enabled.
Normally, secure input is only active when a password prompt is displayed
or it is manually (and typically temporarily) enabled. However, if you
always have secure input enabled, the indication can be distracting and
you may want to disable it.
**`linux-cgroup`**
: Put every surface (tab, split, window) into a dedicated Linux cgroup.
This makes it so that resource management can be done on a per-surface
granularity. For example, if a shell program is using too much memory,
only that shell will be killed by the oom monitor instead of the entire
Ghostty process. Similarly, if a shell program is using too much CPU,
only that surface will be CPU-throttled.
This will cause startup times to be slower (a hundred milliseconds or so),
so the default value is "single-instance." In single-instance mode, only
one instance of Ghostty is running (see gtk-single-instance) so the startup
time is a one-time cost. Additionally, single instance Ghostty is much
more likely to have many windows, tabs, etc. so cgroup isolation is a
big benefit.
This feature requires systemd. If systemd is unavailable, cgroup
initialization will fail. By default, this will not prevent Ghostty
from working (see linux-cgroup-hard-fail).
Valid values are:
* `never` - Never use cgroups.
* `always` - Always use cgroups.
* `single-instance` - Enable cgroups only for Ghostty instances launched
as single-instance applications (see gtk-single-instance).
**`linux-cgroup-memory-limit`**
: Memory limit for any individual terminal process (tab, split, window,
etc.) in bytes. If this is unset then no memory limit will be set.
Note that this sets the "memory.high" configuration for the memory
controller, which is a soft limit. You should configure something like
systemd-oom to handle killing processes that have too much memory
pressure.
**`linux-cgroup-processes-limit`**
: Number of processes limit for any individual terminal process (tab, split,
window, etc.). If this is unset then no limit will be set.
Note that this sets the "pids.max" configuration for the process number
controller, which is a hard limit.
**`linux-cgroup-hard-fail`**
: If this is false, then any cgroup initialization (for linux-cgroup)
will be allowed to fail and the failure is ignored. This is useful if
you view cgroup isolation as a "nice to have" and not a critical resource
management feature, because Ghostty startup will not fail if cgroup APIs
fail.
If this is true, then any cgroup initialization failure will cause
Ghostty to exit or new surfaces to not be created.
Note: This currently only affects cgroup initialization. Subprocesses
must always be able to move themselves into an isolated cgroup.
**`gtk-single-instance`**
: If `true`, the Ghostty GTK application will run in single-instance mode:
each new `ghostty` process launched will result in a new window if there is
already a running process.
If `false`, each new ghostty process will launch a separate application.
The default value is `detect` which will default to `true` if Ghostty
detects that it was launched from the `.desktop` file such as an app
launcher (like Gnome Shell) or by D-Bus activation. If Ghostty is launched
from the command line, it will default to `false`.
Note that debug builds of Ghostty have a separate single-instance ID
so you can test single instance without conflicting with release builds.
**`gtk-titlebar`**
: When enabled, the full GTK titlebar is displayed instead of your window
manager's simple titlebar. The behavior of this option will vary with your
window manager.
This option does nothing when `window-decoration` is false or when running
under macOS.
Changing this value at runtime and reloading the configuration will only
affect new windows.
**`gtk-tabs-location`**
: Determines the side of the screen that the GTK tab bar will stick to.
Top, bottom, left, right, and hidden are supported. The default is top.
If this option has value `left` or `right` when using Adwaita, it falls
back to `top`. `hidden`, meaning that tabs don't exist, is not supported
without using Adwaita, falling back to `top`.
When `hidden` is set and Adwaita is enabled, a tab button displaying the
number of tabs will appear in the title bar. It has the ability to open a
tab overview for displaying tabs. Alternatively, you can use the
`toggle_tab_overview` action in a keybind if your window doesn't have a
title bar, or you can switch tabs with keybinds.
**`adw-toolbar-style`**
: Determines the appearance of the top and bottom bars when using the
Adwaita tab bar. This requires `gtk-adwaita` to be enabled (it is
by default).
Valid values are:
* `flat` - Top and bottom bars are flat with the terminal window.
* `raised` - Top and bottom bars cast a shadow on the terminal area.
* `raised-border` - Similar to `raised` but the shadow is replaced with a
more subtle border.
Changing this value at runtime will only affect new windows.
**`gtk-wide-tabs`**
: If `true` (default), then the Ghostty GTK tabs will be "wide." Wide tabs
are the new typical Gnome style where tabs fill their available space.
If you set this to `false` then tabs will only take up space they need,
which is the old style.
**`gtk-adwaita`**
: If `true` (default), Ghostty will enable Adwaita theme support. This
will make `window-theme` work properly and will also allow Ghostty to
properly respond to system theme changes, light/dark mode changing, etc.
This requires a GTK4 desktop with a GTK4 theme.
If you are running GTK3 or have a GTK3 theme, you may have to set this
to false to get your theme picked up properly. Having this set to true
with GTK3 should not cause any problems, but it may not work exactly as
expected.
This configuration only has an effect if Ghostty was built with
Adwaita support.
**`desktop-notifications`**
: If `true` (default), applications running in the terminal can show desktop
notifications using certain escape sequences such as OSC 9 or OSC 777.
**`bold-is-bright`**
: If `true`, the bold text will use the bright color palette.
**`term`**
: This will be used to set the `TERM` environment variable.
HACK: We set this with an `xterm` prefix because vim uses that to enable key
protocols (specifically this will enable `modifyOtherKeys`), among other
features. An option exists in vim to modify this: `:set
keyprotocol=ghostty:kitty`, however a bug in the implementation prevents it
from working properly. https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/13211 fixes this.
**`enquiry-response`**
: String to send when we receive `ENQ` (`0x05`) from the command that we are
running. Defaults to an empty string if not set.
**`auto-update`**
: Control the auto-update functionality of Ghostty. This is only supported
on macOS currently, since Linux builds are distributed via package
managers that are not centrally controlled by Ghostty.
Checking or downloading an update does not send any information to
the project beyond standard network information mandated by the
underlying protocols. To put it another way: Ghostty doesn't explicitly
add any tracking to the update process. The update process works by
downloading information about the latest version and comparing it
client-side to the current version.
Valid values are:
* `off` - Disable auto-updates.
* `check` - Check for updates and notify the user if an update is
available, but do not automatically download or install the update.
* `download` - Check for updates, automatically download the update,
notify the user, but do not automatically install the update.
The default value is `check`.
Changing this value at runtime works after a small delay.
**`auto-update-channel`**
: The release channel to use for auto-updates.
The default value of this matches the release channel of the currently
running Ghostty version. If you download a pre-release version of Ghostty
then this will be set to `tip` and you will receive pre-release updates.
If you download a stable version of Ghostty then this will be set to
`stable` and you will receive stable updates.
Valid values are:
* `stable` - Stable, tagged releases such as "1.0.0".
* `tip` - Pre-release versions generated from each commit to the
main branch. This is the version that was in use during private
beta testing by thousands of people. It is generally stable but
will likely have more bugs than the stable channel.
Changing this configuration requires a full restart of
Ghostty to take effect.
This only works on macOS since only macOS has an auto-update feature.
# KEYBIND ACTIONS
**`ignore`**
: Ignore this key combination, don't send it to the child process, just
black hole it.
**`unbind`**
: This action is used to flag that the binding should be removed from
the set. This should never exist in an active set and `set.put` has an
assertion to verify this.
**`csi`**
: Send a CSI sequence. The value should be the CSI sequence without the
CSI header (`ESC ]` or `\x1b]`).
**`esc`**
: Send an `ESC` sequence.
**`text`**
**`cursor_key`**
: Send data to the pty depending on whether cursor key mode is enabled
(`application`) or disabled (`normal`).
**`reset`**
: Reset the terminal. This can fix a lot of issues when a running
program puts the terminal into a broken state. This is equivalent to
when you type "reset" and press enter.
If you do this while in a TUI program such as vim, this may break
the program. If you do this while in a shell, you may have to press
enter after to get a new prompt.
**`copy_to_clipboard`**
: Copy and paste.
**`paste_from_clipboard`**
**`paste_from_selection`**
**`increase_font_size`**
: Increase/decrease the font size by a certain amount.
**`decrease_font_size`**
**`reset_font_size`**
: Reset the font size to the original configured size.
**`clear_screen`**
: Clear the screen. This also clears all scrollback.
**`select_all`**
: Select all text on the screen.
**`scroll_to_top`**
: Scroll the screen varying amounts.
**`scroll_to_bottom`**
**`scroll_page_up`**
**`scroll_page_down`**
**`scroll_page_fractional`**
**`scroll_page_lines`**
**`adjust_selection`**
: Adjust an existing selection in a given direction. This action
does nothing if there is no active selection.
**`jump_to_prompt`**
: Jump the viewport forward or back by prompt. Positive number is the
number of prompts to jump forward, negative is backwards.
**`write_scrollback_file`**
: Write the entire scrollback into a temporary file. The action
determines what to do with the filepath. Valid values are:
- "paste": Paste the file path into the terminal.
- "open": Open the file in the default OS editor for text files.
The default OS editor is determined by using `open` on macOS
and `xdg-open` on Linux.
**`write_screen_file`**
: Same as write_scrollback_file but writes the full screen contents.
See write_scrollback_file for available values.
**`write_selection_file`**
: Same as write_scrollback_file but writes the selected text.
If there is no selected text this does nothing (it doesn't
even create an empty file). See write_scrollback_file for
available values.
**`new_window`**
: Open a new window. If the application isn't currently focused,
this will bring it to the front.
**`new_tab`**
: Open a new tab.
**`previous_tab`**
: Go to the previous tab.
**`next_tab`**
: Go to the next tab.
**`last_tab`**
: Go to the last tab (the one with the highest index)
**`goto_tab`**
: Go to the tab with the specific number, 1-indexed. If the tab number
is higher than the number of tabs, this will go to the last tab.
**`move_tab`**
: Moves a tab by a relative offset.
Adjusts the tab position based on `offset` (e.g., -1 for left, +1 for right).
If the new position is out of bounds, it wraps around cyclically within the tab range.
**`toggle_tab_overview`**
: Toggle the tab overview.
This only works with libadwaita enabled currently.
**`new_split`**
: Create a new split in the given direction. The new split will appear in
the direction given.
**`goto_split`**
: Focus on a split in a given direction.
**`toggle_split_zoom`**
: zoom/unzoom the current split.
**`resize_split`**
: Resize the current split by moving the split divider in the given
direction
**`equalize_splits`**
: Equalize all splits in the current window
**`inspector`**
: Show, hide, or toggle the terminal inspector for the currently focused
terminal.
**`open_config`**
: Open the configuration file in the default OS editor. If your default OS
editor isn't configured then this will fail. Currently, any failures to
open the configuration will show up only in the logs.
**`reload_config`**
: Reload the configuration. The exact meaning depends on the app runtime
in use but this usually involves re-reading the configuration file
and applying any changes. Note that not all changes can be applied at
runtime.
**`close_surface`**
: Close the current "surface", whether that is a window, tab, split, etc.
This only closes ONE surface. This will trigger close confirmation as
configured.
**`close_window`**
: Close the window, regardless of how many tabs or splits there may be.
This will trigger close confirmation as configured.
**`close_all_windows`**
: Close all windows. This will trigger close confirmation as configured.
This only works for macOS currently.
**`toggle_fullscreen`**
: Toggle fullscreen mode of window.
**`toggle_window_decorations`**
: Toggle window decorations on and off. This only works on Linux.
**`toggle_secure_input`**
: Toggle secure input mode on or off. This is used to prevent apps
that monitor input from seeing what you type. This is useful for
entering passwords or other sensitive information.
This applies to the entire application, not just the focused
terminal. You must toggle it off to disable it, or quit Ghostty.
This only works on macOS, since this is a system API on macOS.
**`toggle_quick_terminal`**
: Toggle the "quick" terminal. The quick terminal is a terminal that
appears on demand from a keybinding, often sliding in from a screen
edge such as the top. This is useful for quick access to a terminal
without having to open a new window or tab.
When the quick terminal loses focus, it disappears. The terminal state
is preserved between appearances, so you can always press the keybinding
to bring it back up.
The quick terminal has some limitations:
- It is a singleton; only one instance can exist at a time.
- It does not support tabs.
- It will not be restored when the application is restarted
(for systems that support window restoration).
- It supports fullscreen, but fullscreen will always be a non-native
fullscreen (macos-non-native-fullscreen = true). This only applies
to the quick terminal window. This is a requirement due to how
the quick terminal is rendered.
See the various configurations for the quick terminal in the
configuration file to customize its behavior.
**`toggle_visibility`**
: Show/hide all windows. If all windows become shown, we also ensure
Ghostty is focused.
This currently only works on macOS. When hiding all windows, we do
not yield focus to the previous application.
**`quit`**
: Quit ghostty.
**`crash`**
: Crash ghostty in the desired thread for the focused surface.
WARNING: This is a hard crash (panic) and data can be lost.
The purpose of this action is to test crash handling. For some
users, it may be useful to test crash reporting functionality in
order to determine if it all works as expected.
The value determines the crash location:
- "main" - crash on the main (GUI) thread.
- "io" - crash on the IO thread for the focused surface.
- "render" - crash on the render thread for the focused surface.
# FILES
_\$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config_
: Location of the default configuration file.
_\$LOCALAPPDATA/ghostty/config_
: **On Windows**, if _\$XDG_CONFIG_HOME_ is not set, _\$LOCALAPPDATA_ will be searched
for configuration files.
# ENVIRONMENT
**XDG_CONFIG_HOME**
: Default location for configuration files.
**LOCALAPPDATA**
: **WINDOWS ONLY:** alternate location to search for configuration files.
# BUGS
See GitHub issues: <https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/issues>
# AUTHOR
Mitchell Hashimoto <m@mitchellh.com>
# SEE ALSO
**ghostty(1)**
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