danterm

DanTerm is a fast macOS terminal built in Swift. It has vertical tabs, split panes, tab groups, clear alerts, and no web runtime.

This section is human maintained.

First, I wanted a terminal app with these non-negotiable features:

• Vertical tabs
• Split panes

I was using iTerm2 for that for over a decade, but latetly I've had annoyances with iTerm2 and the hubris to build my own solution using LLMs.

My first iterations used libghostty for the terminal impl which worked well enough, but after five months of waiting for libghostty to publish a release to fix a memory link issue I reported, that's all I needed to have the hubris to build my own terminal engine with LLMs which took three weeks.

It's pretty fun to vibe-code a tool so central to my workflow. If something doesn't work exactly how I want it, I open a new tab and tell an LLM to change it.

I also experiment with crazy things like unsupervised performance tuning where an agent will fan out subagents to look for major perf issues, rank them by confidence/impact, and automatically verify them using the built-in benchmark ssytem.

• Vertical tabs and collapsible tab groups
• Split panes that inherit the current working directory
• Persistent pane alerts and macOS notifications
• Click a notification to focus its pane
• Local and remote themes
• Save and restore windows, tabs, panes, and commands after shell integration is enabled
• A command-line interface for scripts and coding agents

Cmd-click opens web links. Hold Shift while selecting text or clicking a link when a program such as tmux or Vim has captured the mouse.

Download the latest .dmg from GitHub Releases, then move DanTerm to /Applications.

If your shell tools need them, grant DanTerm access in System Settings under Privacy & Security:

• Full Disk Access
• Developer Tools

Add the flake and Home Manager module:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
    danterm.url = "github:danneu/danterm";
  };

  outputs = { nixpkgs, home-manager, danterm, ... }: {
    homeConfigurations.myuser = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.aarch64-darwin;
      modules = [
        danterm.homeManagerModules.default
        { programs.danterm.enable = true; }
      ];
    };
  };
}

Press Cmd+, to edit settings. DanTerm stores them in ~/.config/danterm/config.json.

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "font": { "size": 14 },
  "theme": { "default": "Dracula", "remote": "Purplepeter" },
  "shell": { "localeFallback": true },
  "ui": { "alertClearMode": "focus", "copyOnSelect": true }
}

Press Cmd+Shift+, to reload the file.

shell.localeFallback defaults to true. For locally spawned panes, DanTerm sets LANG to a supported UTF-8 locale only when it inherits no non-empty LANG, LC_CTYPE, or LC_ALL. Set it to false to disable this fallback.

Keep alerts until you dismiss them:

{
  "ui": { "alertClearMode": "manual" }
}

Nix users can keep the writable config in a dotfiles repository:

programs.danterm.configPath = "/Users/me/src/dotfiles/danterm/config.json";

Shell integration lets DanTerm track working directories, commands, and remote sessions. Home Manager users can enable it for each enabled shell:

programs.danterm.shellIntegration.enable = true;

For a normal app install, add the matching line to your shell config:

# ~/.zshrc
if [[ -n ${DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR:-} ]]; then
  source "$DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR/danterm.zsh"
fi

# ~/.bashrc
if [[ -n ${DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR:-} ]]; then
  source "$DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR/danterm.bash"
fi

# ~/.config/fish/config.fish
if set -q DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR; and test -n "$DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR"
  source "$DANTERM_SHELL_INTEGRATION_DIR/danterm.fish"
end

For remote labels:

scp -r /Applications/DanTerm.app/Contents/Resources/shell-integration \
  user@host:~/.danterm-shell-integration

# Run from the remote shell config. Use .bash or .fish for those shells.
source ~/.danterm-shell-integration/danterm.zsh

Refresh the copied directory after upgrading DanTerm. Older remote copies use a different private protocol version, so DanTerm ignores their identity reports; the local wrapper still shows the connection as remote until it returns.

# /etc/ssh/sshd_config
AcceptEnv LC_*

Run these commands after installing DanTerm:

danterm doctor  # Check permissions, CLI, hooks, skills, jq, and configured font.
danterm skill   # Print the bundled agent instructions.

The bundled skill teaches Claude Code and Codex to control tabs and panes, read output, send keys, switch themes, and manage to-do items. Its source and setup instructions are in integrations/danterm/.

Install the skill from a local clone, then restart the agent:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills ~/.codex/skills
ln -s /absolute/path/to/danterm/integrations/danterm ~/.claude/skills/danterm
ln -s /absolute/path/to/danterm/integrations/danterm ~/.codex/skills/danterm

Verify it in Claude Code or Codex:

/skills

For immediate Claude Code alerts, add this to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "preferredNotifChannel": "notifications_disabled",
  "hooks": {
    "Stop": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/Applications/DanTerm.app/Contents/Resources/danterm-hooks/danterm-claude-notify-osc777",
            "timeout": 10
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "AskUserQuestion",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/Applications/DanTerm.app/Contents/Resources/danterm-hooks/danterm-claude-notify-osc777",
            "timeout": 10
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "PermissionRequest": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/Applications/DanTerm.app/Contents/Resources/danterm-hooks/danterm-claude-notify-osc777",
            "timeout": 10
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "Elicitation": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/Applications/DanTerm.app/Contents/Resources/danterm-hooks/danterm-claude-notify-osc777",
            "timeout": 10
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

To make Codex use DanTerm notifications, add this to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[tui]
notification_method = "osc9"

Restart existing Codex sessions after changing this setting.

The app menus list all shortcuts.

danterm ls
danterm tab new --cmd 'just test'
danterm pane split -h
danterm pane read --pane "$DANTERM_PANE" --lines 50

See integrations/danterm/SKILL.md for all commands and examples.

Terminal behavior is defined by the terminal capability contract.

bash ./dev-build.sh --no-install  # Build without replacing an installed app.
just provision-worktree           # Run once in a new Git worktree.
just launch-slot                  # Run an isolated development copy.
just test                         # Run the test suite.