Ports ZIG/src/lib_vt.zig and terminal/c/* as crates/ghostty-vt-capi (cdylib + staticlib + rlib, soname libghostty-vt.so) implementing the unchanged include/ghostty/vt.h + vt/*.h ABI: OSC parser, SGR parser, key events and key encoding, paste safety, colors, result codes - all 38 native symbols, plus the ghostty_wasm_* helpers on wasm32. Verification: - tests/abi.rs generates a C probe from the headers, compiled with cc, that checks sizeof/alignof/offsetof of every struct/union, every enumerator and #define against Rust, and links every declared symbol; nm -D exports equal the declared functions. - Ghostty's example/c-vt* programs compile unchanged against the Rust library (shared and static) and produce the expected output. - The wasm32 build runs Ghostty's wasm-key-encode/wasm-sgr example scripts unmodified under node (upstream's wasm-sgr tag table is stale vs sgr.h; a regenerated copy checks full output). Test Plan: - cargo test -p ghostty-vt-capi (22 unit + 2 ABI + 5 C + 3 wasm tests)
ghostty-rs
A Rust rewrite of the Ghostty 1.3.1 terminal emulator for Linux (GTK4 + libadwaita, OpenGL).
It aims for behavioural parity with Ghostty: the same configuration file
format, options, defaults and documentation; the same keybindings and
actions; the same ghostty +action CLI; the same terminal emulation
(including kitty keyboard/graphics protocols, OSC 8 hyperlinks, semantic
prompts, synchronized output, tmux control mode); the same shell
integration, themes and terminfo.
Out of scope: macOS, Windows, WASM, the embedded libghostty C API, and
Sentry crash reporting (disabled by default on Linux upstream).
Building and running
Requirements: Rust (edition 2024), GTK ≥ 4.14, libadwaita ≥ 1.5,
fontconfig, freetype, harfbuzz, Oniguruma, libepoxy, blueprint-compiler
and glib-compile-resources at build time.
cargo run # open a terminal window running your shell
cargo run -- -e htop # run a command
cargo run -- +list-themes # CLI actions work like Ghostty's
cargo run --profile production # optimized build (LTO, no debug assertions)
Development builds find resources/ (shell integration, themes, terminfo)
automatically. Your existing Ghostty config
(~/.config/ghostty/config[.ghostty]) is used as-is.
Installing
just install /usr/local # binary, share/ghostty, terminfo, desktop files,
# completions, man pages, translations, icons
just install /usr false true # system-package layout (lib/systemd/user)
Testing
just test # cargo test --workspace (~3000 tests)
just clippy # clippy with -D warnings
Every Zig test block of the ported files was ported to a Rust test.
crates/ghostty-core/tests holds end-to-end tests that drive the real core,
terminal and a real pty through a fake app runtime. ghostty-bench mirrors
Ghostty's benchmark tool; terminal stream throughput is on par with the Zig
build (see docs/rewrite/notes/perf-P1.md).
Documentation
docs/rewrite/ARCHITECTURE.md– top-down decomposition, crate map, key design decisions, intentional omissionsdocs/rewrite/STATUS.md– work package historydocs/rewrite/notes/– per-crate porting notes, deviations from Zig, audits and verification reports
License
MIT, like Ghostty. Bundled fonts and themes carry their own licenses (see
crates/ghostty-font/res/ and resources/themes/).