txt

A fast terminal text editor for engineers who want to make quick, precise edits without leaving the terminal.

• Starts instantly. No bundled language servers, no plugin system, no background daemons. LSP support is available when you need it — bring your own server.
• No configuration required. Works out of the box with sensible defaults; a TOML config is available when you want it.
• Keyboard-driven. Familiar shortcuts (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+F, Ctrl+Z), fuzzy file picker, multi-cursor editing, and AST-aware selection — all without a mouse.
• Just editing. No built-in terminal, no code execution, no extension marketplace. The right tool for reviewing a diff, editing a config file, or making a targeted change alongside an AI coding agent.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ErikHellman/txt/main/install.sh | sh

Installs the latest release to ~/.local/bin/txt. Run the same command to update.

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ErikHellman/txt/main/install.ps1 | iex

Installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\txt\txt.exe and adds it to your user PATH.

Requires Rust 1.88 or later.

git clone https://github.com/ErikHellman/txt.git
cd txt
cargo build --release
# Binary is at target/release/txt

Download the archive for your platform from the Releases page, extract the binary, and place it on your PATH. Verify integrity with checksums.txt:

sha256sum --check checksums.txt

brew tap ErikHellman/tap
brew install txt

Not yet available.

txt                  # open an empty buffer
txt file.rs          # open a file
txt .                # open a directory (file sidebar opens automatically)
txt --help           # show CLI reference

Press F1 inside the editor for a scrollable in-app reference.

All editing and navigation operations apply to every cursor simultaneously.

Sidebar keys (when sidebar is focused):

LSP servers must be installed separately on your system before they can be used. Use Ctrl+L to configure which server to launch for the current file type.

Tree-sitter powered highlighting with AST-aware selection (Ctrl+W / Ctrl+Shift+W). Language is detected from the file extension.

Lines modified relative to HEAD are marked in the gutter:

• Added — line is new since HEAD
• Modified — line exists in HEAD but has changed
• Deleted — a line from HEAD was removed before this position

The gutter is absent for untracked files or repositories where git is unavailable.

The find bar (Ctrl+F) shows a live match count and highlights all matches. Ctrl+H adds a replace field. Toggle [Rx] for regex and [Cc] for case-sensitive mode while searching. Ctrl+A in the replace field replaces all matches in a single undo step.

Ctrl+P opens a fuzzy picker over all files in the current workspace using the nucleo library. Type to filter, use arrow keys to select, Enter to open, Esc to close.

Ctrl+Shift+P opens a searchable list of all editor commands with their shortcuts. Useful for discovering bindings or running commands without remembering the key.

Ctrl+B focuses or opens the sidebar. Ctrl+Shift+B toggles it closed entirely. Navigating the sidebar does not disturb the editor — the active pane is always shown in the status bar mode badge. Space or Right opens a file while keeping sidebar focus; Left collapses the current directory and moves to its parent.

When a file is modified externally (by another process or an AI agent writing changes), txt detects the change and reloads the buffer automatically, preserving the current cursor position.

Alt+Shift+Down/Up adds a cursor on the adjacent line at the same column. All cursor movements, edits, clipboard operations, and deletions apply to every cursor simultaneously. Esc collapses back to the primary cursor.

Location: ~/.config/txt/config.toml

All fields are optional. The file is created with defaults on first save via the settings overlay (Ctrl+Alt+,).

tab_size = 4              # spaces per indent level
word_wrap = false         # enable word wrap by default
confirm_exit = false      # ask before quitting with unsaved changes
auto_save = false         # auto-save after edits (debounced)
show_whitespace = false   # render whitespace glyphs
theme = "default"         # "default" | "monokai" | "gruvbox" | "nord"

Settings can also be changed interactively via Ctrl+Alt+, and are written back to config.toml immediately.

Recent files are stored per-workspace in <workspace>/.txt/recents.json (up to 50 entries). This file is local to each project. If you do not want it to appear in Git, add .txt/ to your project's .gitignore.

• Rust 1.88+ (edition 2024) — install via rustup

cargo build                  # debug build
cargo build --release        # optimised release build
cargo run -- <file>          # run from source, open a file
cargo run -- <directory>     # run from source, open a directory

cargo test                   # run all unit tests
cargo bench                  # criterion benchmarks (benches/buffer.rs)

Fix all compiler warnings before opening a PR — CI treats warnings as errors.

Every push to main and every pull request runs:

1. cargo fmt --check
2. cargo build --all-targets (with -D warnings)
3. cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
4. cargo test --all-targets

txt follows a Model-View-Update pattern: AppState::update() mutates all state in response to input; ui::render() draws the full frame from that state on every tick. There is no retained UI state — the terminal buffer is fully redrawn each frame.

• unicode-width is pinned to =0.2.2 — must match ratatui's internal version exactly. Any version change silently breaks cursor column rendering.
• Use byte offsets for all rope operations. ropey::Rope is indexed by byte offset throughout src/buffer/. Convert with rope.byte_to_char() / rope.char_to_byte() — never do char-index arithmetic directly.
• #[allow(dead_code)] annotations are intentional. Many public methods are future API being built incrementally. Do not remove them.

Linux binaries are statically linked against musl libc and run on any distribution without glibc version constraints.

Releases are tagged vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH and built automatically by GitHub Actions for all five platforms. See RELEASES.md for the full release procedure, distribution channels, and install script details.

Licensed under either of MIT or Apache 2.0 at your option.