Ghostty

GPU-accelerated terminal emulator. Config stowed to ~/.config/ghostty/config.

Install

Managed via pkgs.ghostty-bin in nixpkgs — a repackaging of the official .dmg binary. Nix cannot compile Ghostty from source on macOS (requires Swift 6 + xcodebuild), so ghostty-bin is the correct nixpkgs package for Darwin. Listed in darwin-configuration.nix and the devShell.

After darwin-rebuild switch, find it in ~/Applications/Nix Apps/Ghostty.app or launch via Spotlight.

Opening

# From terminal
ghostty

# Or open the .app
open ~/Applications/Nix\ Apps/Ghostty.app

Ghostty opens a new window directly — no server process, no attach step. Just open it.

Daily use

Ghostty is intentionally minimal: it's a terminal emulator, not a multiplexer. Run herdr inside it for pane/session management (see herdr/README.md).

Useful built-in commands:

ghostty +list-themes       # browse built-in themes
ghostty +list-fonts        # list fonts Ghostty can see
ghostty +show-config       # dump active config (with defaults merged in)

Keybindings (defaults)

Key	Action
cmd+n	New window
cmd+t	New tab
cmd+w	Close tab/window
cmd+shift+[ / ]	Previous / next tab
cmd++ / cmd+-	Increase / decrease font size
cmd+0	Reset font size
cmd+k	Clear scrollback
cmd+shift+c	Copy
cmd+shift+v	Paste

Config

Key settings in ~/.config/ghostty/config:

Option	Value
Font	JetBrainsMono Nerd Font 15pt
Theme	catppuccin-mocha
Background opacity	85% with macOS blur
Cursor	blinking bar
Shell	/bin/zsh

To tweak: edit ghostty/.config/ghostty/config in this repo (symlinked, changes take effect on next Ghostty window). No restart needed for most settings — new windows pick up config changes immediately.

Updating

ghostty-bin tracks the version in nixpkgs-unstable. It updates when you run:

nix flake update
darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#darwin-system