Ghostty: Born from Curiosity, Not Market Demand
Mitchell Hashimoto, creator of Vagrant, Terraform, and other HashiCorp tools, didn't set out to build the next big terminal emulator. He wanted to sharpen three rusty skills: pre-AI GPU programming, desktop/single-node systems programming (cache locality, vector ops), and learning Zig. His original goal was modest: "run vim and the compiler in it, have it build itself, then throw it away."
But as he dug into terminal internals, he found nothing fit his niche: fast, feature-rich, and natively cross-platform. He shared it with friends on Discord, who started using it daily. The Ghostty Discord was literally his friends' group chat repurposed. He ran a private beta for a long time to avoid the attention his public persona would generate.
The Terminal as a Platform: N-Screen API and Button Protocol
Hashimoto has two protocol ideas he's spec'd out. First, an n-screen API: instead of the current two-screen model (main screen with scrollback, alternate screen for TUIs that loses scrollback), he wants unlimited screens. Applications could create background screens, overlay them with separate grid sizes, and even render them as native windows outside the terminal grid. "Imagine your Neovim tabs being native window tabs opened at the same time," he says.
Second, a button protocol. Currently, terminals support hyperlinks via OSC 8, but they only work for what's on screen. Hashimoto wants buttons that register clicks even after scrolling into history. This would benefit main-screen applications like Claude Code, where users lose the ability to open files or follow links once output scrolls off.
He's also considered replacing the PTY protocol with Wayland. "If you squint, a terminal's just a windowing server," he says, but he abandoned that path. His guiding principle: research prior art. When someone proposes a new clipboard API, he checks what AppKit, Win32, and GTK already do. "There's no reason for us to build something based on our own understanding without researching decades of prior art."
Zig: The Language Choice
Hashimoto chose Zig for Ghostty because it satisfies his desire to work on desktop systems programming with modern ergonomics. He didn't elaborate on specific Zig features, but the choice aligns with his focus on performance and control over memory layout.
Open-Source Maintainer Obligations: A Blunt Take
Hashimoto is unapologetic about his philosophy: "open-source maintainers have 0 obligation to users." He points to the first line of most OS licenses: "as is, no warranty." He argues that users who demand features or fixes should fork the project instead. "Very few people maintain their own patches and demand entire projects to move to comfort them. It's a very disempowering mindset."
He blames venture-backed open source for creating a generation that expects polished, supported products. "Open source is about freedoms and rights, not stability or obligation to maintain." He encourages more forks—both personal and maintained ones.
Balancing Vision with User Demands
Hashimoto admits he sometimes wakes up and focuses entirely on user issues, other times he ignores them to push the bigger vision. "If all I did was pick through user issues every single day, you'd get stable, stagnant software." He once closed 3-4 feature requests by designing a single feature that solved all their problems—a skill he says requires "a level of care few people give to other projects."
He also addressed a complaint that search (a highly requested feature) bloated Ghostty. His response: the feature is architected so it occupies disk space and RAM but nothing executes unless used. "I want Ghostty to be a riceable, customizable terminal fitting people's needs, but also working out of the box and hiding features until you need them."
The Path Forward for Terminals
Hashimoto sees the terminal as a unique application platform for text-based, composable applications. He doesn't want to turn it into a browser or desktop replacement. Instead, he wants better protocols for composition and automation. He laments the lack of a standards body—"no entity pushing a tasteful vision"—and suggests an alternative home for text-based apps might be needed, with a terminal translation layer for legacy compatibility.
For now, Ghostty remains in private beta. Hashimoto continues to think about these problems "when not at a computer," waiting for the right moment to act.
