Terminal

Overview

Agentastic includes a powerful integrated terminal with four backend options:

• Ghostty - GPU-accelerated terminal rendering via Metal (recommended)
• WezTerm - GPU-accelerated, OpenGL-rendered emulator with font ligatures (HarfBuzz)
• xterm.js - WebGL-accelerated backend that runs in a WebView
• SwiftTerm - Pure Swift terminal implementation

Opening the Terminal

• Press Cmd+J to toggle the Utility Area
• Click the Terminal tab in the Utility Area
• New terminal tabs open with your default shell

Terminal Backends

Ghostty (Recommended)

Ghostty provides GPU-accelerated rendering using Metal, delivering excellent performance and smooth scrolling. It's the default backend on supported systems.

Features:

• GPU-accelerated rendering
• Smooth scrolling
• Native macOS integration
• Fast text rendering

SwiftTerm

SwiftTerm is a pure Swift implementation that works on all supported systems.

Features:

• Native Swift implementation
• Reliable fallback option
• Good compatibility

WezTerm

WezTerm is a powerful, GPU-accelerated emulator (OpenGL) popular for its rendering quality and multiplexing.

Features:

• GPU-accelerated rendering
• Font ligatures via HarfBuzz
• Smooth resizing during splits and drag-selection

xterm.js

xterm.js runs in a WebView with WebGL GPU-accelerated rendering, full theme sync, and auto-resize.

Features:

• WebGL-accelerated rendering
• Clickable URL detection
• Theme synced with the editor

Switching Backends

1. Open Settings (Cmd+,)
2. Navigate to Terminal
3. Select your preferred backend under Terminal Emulator

Configuration

Shell Selection

Choose your shell in Settings > Terminal:

• System Default - Uses your login shell
• Bash - GNU Bash
• Zsh - Z Shell (macOS default)
• Custom - Specify a custom shell path

Appearance

Setting	Description
Font	Terminal font face
Font Size	Text size in points
Cursor Style	Block, underline, or bar
Cursor Blink	Enable/disable blinking

Option as Meta Key

Enable Option as Meta Key to use the Option key as a Meta modifier in terminal applications like Emacs.

Multiple Terminals

Create multiple terminal tabs for different tasks:

• Click the + button in the terminal tab bar
• Each terminal maintains its own shell session
• Right-click tabs for more options

Clickable Links

URLs and file paths printed in the terminal are clickable — no modifier key required:

• Hover over a link and it highlights, with the pointer switching to a hand cursor
• Click (a plain click, no Cmd) opens it — URLs in your default browser, file paths in the editor
• When a split is available, clicking a link can open it in the split so your current pane stays in view

Tip: This works across the Ghostty, WezTerm, and xterm.js backends.

Microphone & Voice Tools

Command-line tools running inside the terminal — such as Claude Code's voice dictation — can use your Mac's microphone. The first time a tool requests it, macOS prompts for permission; the grant belongs to Agentastic, so any terminal pane inherits it.

Shell Integration

Agentastic automatically integrates with your shell to provide enhanced features.

Features

• Tab titles - Shows current directory or running command
• Working directory tracking - Navigator follows terminal location
• Command notifications - Get notified when long-running commands complete
• Process tracking - See running processes in the activity indicator

How It Works

When shell integration is enabled, Agentastic installs hooks into your shell:

• Bash: Sources .codeedit_shell_integration.bash
• Zsh: Sources integration scripts for different startup files

These hooks use preexec and precmd patterns to communicate with Agentastic.

Enabling/Disabling

Toggle shell integration in Settings > Terminal > Shell Integration.

Agent-Aware Terminals

Terminals are associated with their agent context:

• Each agent has its own set of terminal tabs
• Switching agents switches to that agent's terminals
• Terminal state (scrollback, running processes) is preserved per agent
• New terminals open in the current agent's directory

This means you can have different terminal sessions for different branches without interference.

Container Terminals

When an agent uses a Docker container, terminals run inside the container:

• Commands execute in the container environment, not on your host
• The working directory is /workspace (your mounted worktree)
• Your shell configuration is available if Copy Shell Config is enabled
• Terminal sessions use docker exec to connect to the running container

Container terminals provide isolation while maintaining a seamless experience. See Docker Containers for details.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
New Terminal Tab	Cmd+T
Toggle Utility Area	Cmd+J
Close Terminal	Delete (when focused)

Input Features

• Copy/Paste - Standard clipboard integration
• Option as Meta - Use Option key as Meta in vim, emacs, etc.
• Shift+Enter - Send literal newline
• Ctrl+J - Alternative newline input (Ghostty)
• Image pasting - Paste images as file paths

Theme Integration

The terminal automatically uses your current Agentastic theme:

• ANSI colors match your color scheme
• Background and text colors sync with the editor
• Cursor color follows your selection

Tips

• Use Ghostty for best performance on Apple Silicon
• Shell integration enables command completion notifications
• Multiple tabs are great for parallel tasks (build, tests, server)
• Agent terminals keep your contexts separate

Related Comparisons

If you're choosing between Agentastic's terminal and a standalone terminal app:

• Agentastic vs Warp — embedded terminal vs AI-native terminal
• Best Warp alternative — when you need something other than Warp
• Best Ghostty alternative — Ghostty terminal alternatives
• Best iTerm alternative — moving on from iTerm2