
ghostling-libghostty-terminal
Build minimal terminal emulators using the libghostty-vt C API with Raylib for windowing and rendering
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Install
Works with every agent the skills CLI supports.
npx skills add https://github.com/reason-machines/trending-skills --skill ghostling-libghostty-terminal- 01
Install
Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.
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Describe the task
Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads ghostling-libghostty-terminal automatically when relevant.
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Review the result
The agent follows the SKILL.md steps, scripts and references bundled with the skill.
SKILL.md
The instructions your agent reads when the skill is triggered.
Ghostling — libghostty Terminal Emulator
Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection.
Ghostling is a minimal viable terminal emulator built on libghostty-vt, the embeddable C library extracted from Ghostty. It uses Raylib for windowing/rendering and lives in a single C file. The project demonstrates how to wire libghostty-vt's VT parsing, terminal state, and render-state API to any 2D or GPU renderer.
What libghostty-vt Provides
- VT sequence parsing (SIMD-optimized)
- Terminal state: cursor, styles, text reflow, scrollback
- Render state management (what cells changed and how to draw them)
- Unicode / multi-codepoint grapheme handling
- Kitty keyboard protocol, mouse tracking, focus reporting
- Zero dependencies (not even libc) — WASM-compatible
libghostty-vt does NOT provide: windowing, rendering, PTY management, tabs, splits, or configuration.
Requirements
| Tool | Version |
|---|---|
| CMake | 3.19+ |
| Ninja | any |
| C compiler | clang/gcc |
| Zig | 0.15.x (on PATH) |
| macOS | Xcode CLT or Xcode |
Build & Run
# Clone
git clone https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostling.git
cd ghostling
# Debug build (slow — safety checks enabled)
cmake -B build -G Ninja
cmake --build build
./build/ghostling
# Release build (optimized)
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
./build/ghostling
After first configure, only the build step is needed:
cmake --build build
Warning: Debug builds are very slow due to Ghostty's safety/correctness assertions. Always benchmark with Release builds.
Project Structure
ghostling/
├── main.c # Entire terminal implementation (single file)
├── CMakeLists.txt # Build config; fetches libghostty-vt + Raylib
└── demo.gif
Core libghostty-vt API Patterns
All implementation lives in main.c. Below are the key patterns extracted from it.
1. Initialize the Terminal
#include "ghostty.h" // provided by libghostty-vt via CMake
// Create terminal with cols x rows cells
ghostty_terminal_t *terminal = ghostty_terminal_new(
&(ghostty_terminal_config_t){
.cols = cols,
.rows = rows,
}
);
if (!terminal) { /* handle error */ }
2. Write Data from PTY into the Terminal
// Read from PTY fd, feed raw bytes to libghostty-vt
ssize_t n = read(pty_fd, buf, sizeof(buf));
if (n > 0) {
ghostty_terminal_write(terminal, buf, (size_t)n);
}
3. Send Keyboard Input
// libghostty-vt encodes the correct escape sequences
ghostty_key_event_t ev = {
.key = GHOSTTY_KEY_A, // key enum
.mods = GHOSTTY_MODS_CTRL, // modifier flags
.action = GHOSTTY_ACTION_PRESS,
.composing = false,
};
uint8_t out[64];
size_t out_len = 0;
ghostty_terminal_key(terminal, &ev, out, sizeof(out), &out_len);
// Write encoded bytes to PTY
if (out_len > 0) write(pty_fd, out, out_len);
4. Send Mouse Events
ghostty_mouse_event_t mev = {
.x = cell_col, // cell column
.y = cell_row, // cell row
.button = GHOSTTY_MOUSE_LEFT,
.action = GHOSTTY_MOUSE_PRESS,
.mods = GHOSTTY_MODS_NONE,
};
uint8_t out[64];
size_t out_len = 0;
ghostty_terminal_mouse(terminal, &mev, out, sizeof(out), &out_len);
if (out_len > 0) write(pty_fd, out, out_len);
5. Resize the Terminal
ghostty_terminal_resize(terminal, new_cols, new_rows);
// libghostty-vt handles text reflow automatically
// Send SIGWINCH to the child process after this
struct winsize ws = { .ws_col = new_cols, .ws_row = new_rows };
ioctl(pty_fd, TIOCSWINSZ, &ws);
kill(child_pid, SIGWINCH);
6. Render: Walk the Render State
The render state API tells you exactly which cells changed and how to draw them — no need to redraw everything every frame.
// Get render state handle
ghostty_render_state_t *rs = ghostty_terminal_render_state(terminal);
// Begin a render pass (snapshot current state)
ghostty_render_state_begin(rs);
// Iterate dirty cells
ghostty_render_cell_iter_t iter = {0};
ghostty_render_cell_t cell;
while (ghostty_render_state_next_cell(rs, &iter, &cell)) {
// cell.col, cell.row — grid position
// cell.codepoint — Unicode codepoint (0 = empty)
// cell.fg.r/g/b — foreground RGB
// cell.bg.r/g/b — background RGB
// cell.attrs.bold — bold flag
// cell.attrs.italic — italic flag
// cell.attrs.reverse — reverse video
// Example: draw with Raylib
Color fg = { cell.fg.r, cell.fg.g, cell.fg.b, 255 };
Color bg = { cell.bg.r, cell.bg.g, cell.bg.b, 255 };
Rectangle rect = {
.x = cell.col * cell_width,
.y = cell.row * cell_height,
.width = cell_width,
.height = cell_height,
};
DrawRectangleRec(rect, bg);
if (cell.codepoint != 0) {
char glyph[8] = {0};
// encode codepoint to UTF-8 yourself or use a helper
encode_utf8(cell.codepoint, glyph);
DrawText(glyph, (int)rect.x, (int)rect.y, font_size, fg);
}
}
// End render pass (marks cells as clean)
ghostty_render_state_end(rs);
7. Scrollback
// Scroll viewport up/down by N rows
ghostty_terminal_scroll(terminal, -3); // scroll up 3
ghostty_terminal_scroll(terminal, 3); // scroll down 3
// Scroll to bottom
ghostty_terminal_scroll_bottom(terminal);
8. Cursor Position
ghostty_cursor_t cursor;
ghostty_terminal_cursor(terminal, &cursor);
// cursor.col, cursor.row — cell position
// cursor.visible — bool
// cursor.shape — GHOSTTY_CURSOR_BLOCK, _UNDERLINE, _BAR
9. Cleanup
ghostty_terminal_free(terminal);
PTY Setup (POSIX)
libghostty-vt has no PTY management — you own this:
#include <pty.h> // openpty
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int master_fd, slave_fd;
struct winsize ws = { .ws_row = rows, .ws_col = cols,
.ws_xpixel = 0, .ws_ypixel = 0 };
openpty(&master_fd, &slave_fd, NULL, NULL, &ws);
pid_t child = fork();
if (child == 0) {
// Child: become session leader, attach slave PTY
setsid();
ioctl(slave_fd, TIOCSCTTY, 0);
dup2(slave_fd, STDIN_FILENO);
dup2(slave_fd, STDOUT_FILENO);
dup2(slave_fd, STDERR_FILENO);
close(master_fd);
close(slave_fd);
char *shell = getenv("SHELL");
if (!shell) shell = "/bin/sh";
execl(shell, shell, NULL);
_exit(1);
}
// Parent: use master_fd for read/write
close(slave_fd);
CMakeLists.txt Pattern
The project fetches libghostty-vt automatically via CMake FetchContent:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.19)
project(ghostling C)
include(FetchContent)
# libghostty-vt
FetchContent_Declare(
libghostty
URL https://release.files.ghostty.org/tip/libghostty-vt-<platform>.tar.gz
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(libghostty)
# Raylib
FetchContent_Declare(
raylib
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/raysan5/raylib.git
GIT_TAG 5.0
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(raylib)
add_executable(ghostling main.c)
target_link_libraries(ghostling PRIVATE ghostty-vt raylib)
Key Enums & Constants
// Keys
GHOSTTY_KEY_A … GHOSTTY_KEY_Z
GHOSTTY_KEY_UP, GHOSTTY_KEY_DOWN, GHOSTTY_KEY_LEFT, GHOSTTY_KEY_RIGHT
GHOSTTY_KEY_ENTER, GHOSTTY_KEY_BACKSPACE, GHOSTTY_KEY_ESCAPE, GHOSTTY_KEY_TAB
GHOSTTY_KEY_F1 … GHOSTTY_KEY_F12
// Modifiers (bitmask)
GHOSTTY_MODS_NONE
GHOSTTY_MODS_SHIFT
GHOSTTY_MODS_CTRL
GHOSTTY_MODS_ALT
GHOSTTY_MODS_SUPER
// Mouse buttons
GHOSTTY_MOUSE_LEFT, GHOSTTY_MOUSE_RIGHT, GHOSTTY_MOUSE_MIDDLE
GHOSTTY_MOUSE_WHEEL_UP, GHOSTTY_MOUSE_WHEEL_DOWN
// Cursor shapes
GHOSTTY_CURSOR_BLOCK, GHOSTTY_CURSOR_UNDERLINE, GHOSTTY_CURSOR_BAR
Common Patterns
Non-blocking PTY Read Loop
// Set master_fd non-blocking
fcntl(master_fd, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK);
// In your main loop:
uint8_t buf[4096];
ssize_t n;
while ((n = read(master_fd, buf, sizeof(buf))) > 0) {
ghostty_terminal_write(terminal, buf, (size_t)n);
}
// EAGAIN means no data available — not an error
Raylib Key → ghostty_key_t Mapping
ghostty_key_t raylib_key_to_ghostty(int rl_key) {
switch (rl_key) {
case KEY_A: return GHOSTTY_KEY_A;
case KEY_ENTER: return GHOSTTY_KEY_ENTER;
case KEY_BACKSPACE: return GHOSTTY_KEY_BACKSPACE;
case KEY_UP: return GHOSTTY_KEY_UP;
case KEY_DOWN: return GHOSTTY_KEY_DOWN;
// ... etc
default: return GHOSTTY_KEY_INVALID;
}
}
Scrollbar Rendering
int total_rows = ghostty_terminal_total_rows(terminal);
int viewport_rows = rows; // your grid height
int scroll_offset = ghostty_terminal_scroll_offset(terminal);
float bar_h = (float)viewport_rows / total_rows * window_height;
float bar_y = (float)scroll_offset / total_rows * window_height;
DrawRectangle(window_width - SCROLLBAR_W, (int)bar_y,
SCROLLBAR_W, (int)bar_h, GRAY);
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
Build fails: zig not found | Install Zig 0.15.x and ensure it's on $PATH |
| Debug build extremely slow | Use Release: cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release |
| Terminal renders garbage | Verify you're calling ghostty_render_state_begin before iterating cells and ghostty_render_state_end after |
| Child process not getting resize | Call ioctl(pty_fd, TIOCSWINSZ, &ws) AND kill(child_pid, SIGWINCH) after ghostty_terminal_resize |
| Kitty keyboard protocol broken | Known upstream Raylib/GLFW limitation — libghostty-vt supports it correctly but needs richer input events |
| Colors look wrong | Check cell.fg/cell.bg — libghostty-vt resolves palette to RGB, use those values directly |
ghostty_terminal_write crashes | Ensure buffer passed is valid and len > 0; never pass NULL |
What libghostty-vt Will NOT Do For You
You must implement these yourself:
- PTY creation and process management
- Window creation and event loop
- Font loading and glyph rendering
- Clipboard read/write (OSC 52 bytes are provided, handling is yours)
- Tabs, splits, multiple windows
- Configuration UI
API Reference
Full libghostty-vt C API docs: https://libghostty.tip.ghostty.org/group__render.html
FAQ
What does the ghostling-libghostty-terminal skill do?
Build minimal terminal emulators using the libghostty-vt C API with Raylib for windowing and rendering
How do I install ghostling-libghostty-terminal?
Run npx skills add https://github.com/reason-machines/trending-skills --skill ghostling-libghostty-terminal in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/ghostling-libghostty-terminal/ (personal) or .claude/skills/ghostling-libghostty-terminal/ (project).
Which AI agents can use ghostling-libghostty-terminal?
Any agent that supports the open Agent Skills format (a folder with a SKILL.md file), including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode and more.
Is ghostling-libghostty-terminal safe to install?
No partner security audit is available yet. Skills can run commands and scripts, so read the SKILL.md and any bundled files before installing.
Who maintains ghostling-libghostty-terminal?
It is published by reason-machines in reason-machines/trending-skills. It has 1,120 recorded installs.
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