A minimal modern terminal for AI coding.
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A minimal modern terminal built for AI coding. Sidebar workspaces; horizontal / vertical split panes; one-click agent launch; per-agent activity readout; live workspace state with one-click Node and branch switching. Open-source, MIT-licensed. No accounts, no telemetry; app state stays local. GPU rendering via libghostty.
Vertical tabs, split panes & windows. Sidebar workspaces with three-state collapse (⌘⌃S). Each pane owns its own tab strip and active tab. ⌘⇧N opens another window. Drag a tab to reorder it, move it across panes, or drop it into a different window — the live session moves whole, scrollback and running process intact. State persists across launches; every open window is restored. Open any folder as a new workspace: drop it onto the sidebar from Finder, or use ⌘O. Press ⌘⇧E to zoom the active pane to fullscreen and back — the other panes slide off-screen but their processes keep running.
One-click AI agent sessions. Claude Code · Codex · Gemini CLI · OpenCode · Amp · Cursor CLI · Copilot CLI · Grok Build · Antigravity CLI. Pick one from the + menu; the agent boots before your first prompt prints. Claude conversations also auto-resume across kooky restarts so closing and reopening a tab picks up where you left off.
Git worktrees. Right-click any git workspace → "Create Worktree…" to spin one up on a new branch (or check out an existing one). Each worktree shows up nested under its source repo in the sidebar with its own tabs + agent — let Claude work on a feature branch without touching what's running on main. Worktrees you create from the command line show up automatically the next time you launch kooky.
Right-click a selection → "Ask ". Select an error / log line / file path, right-click, pick any agent — a new tab spawns with the selection already submitted as the first prompt. Zero ⌘C / ⌘V to go from "what is this" to an actual answer.
Quick Open (⌘P). Fuzzy-search across every window's workspaces, tabs, agents, and Terminal presets from one floating panel. Type to filter, ↑↓ to navigate, Enter to jump or spawn. Triggers from ⌘P or the search pill in the top chrome.
Friction-free input. Click anywhere on the zsh prompt to move the shell cursor there (no modifier needed, same UX as ghostty.app). Drag a file or folder from Finder onto any pane to drop its escaped absolute path at the cursor.
Agent activity readout. Sidebar dot tracks each agent in real time — running (blue), waiting on you (amber), idle (none). Tab + workspace dots also turn red when the last command exited non-zero; hover for exit N · 12.4s.
Live workspace state. Pane status bar shows git branch + diff (N files +X −Y), Python venv, Node version, and active proxy (https_proxy / http_proxy / all_proxy). Auto-refreshes when an agent's Bash tool or another terminal switches branches. Click the Node or branch pill to switch versions / branches without typing; click the proxy pill to see and copy the full name=value.
SwiftUI-native, minimal chrome. Onest + JetBrains Mono. Custom About panel, native menus with shortcut hints, full IME support.
Configurable. Settings (⌘,) covers themes, font, cursor, default new-tab behavior, Terminal presets, agents, and the pane status bar. Theme changes update the whole window immediately.
Local by default. No accounts, no telemetry, no cloud sync. Kooky keeps its own state on your device.
libghostty-powered. GPU-accelerated cell rendering, same engine as ghostty. Fast.
Download the latest .dmg from Releases. Open it and drag Kooky.app to Applications.
First launch is blocked by Gatekeeper because the build is adhoc-signed (no Apple Developer ID yet — public-distribution signing and notarization will come when there are real users). You'll see "Kooky cannot be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software" or "is damaged and cannot be opened". Pick whichever bypass works for you:
Path A — System Settings (recommended)
- Double-click
Kooky.app. If shows the warning. Dismiss it. - System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security.
- Click Open Anyway next to "Kooky was blocked to protect your Mac". Enter your password.
- Double-click
Kooky.appagain → click Open. Done.
Path B — Terminal (one-liner)
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Kooky.appPath C — when "Open Anyway" doesn't appear at all
Sequoia sometimes hides the Open Anyway button entirely for adhoc-signed apps. Re-enable the legacy "Anywhere" option, then redo Path A:
sudo spctl --global-disable # macOS 15+; older systems use --master-disable
# System Settings → Privacy & Security → "Allow applications from" → Anywhere
# Open Kooky.app → it now launches
sudo spctl --global-enable # turn Gatekeeper back onThis is system-wide while disabled. Re-enable as soon as kooky launches once (the per-app whitelist persists).
macOS only blocks the first launch. After that, Spotlight / Dock / Finder all work normally.
Requires Xcode 26+ and macOS 14+ (Sonoma — @Observable is the floor).
./scripts/setup-libghostty.sh # one-time: fetch the libghostty xcframework
swift build
swift run # dev mode
swift test # 206 unit tests
./scripts/build-app.sh # writes dist/Kooky.app
./scripts/build-dmg.sh --build # writes dist/Kooky-vX.Y.Z.dmgVendor/ and dist/ are gitignored. The libghostty setup script is idempotent.
MIT — see LICENSE. Bundled third-party assets retain their upstream licenses; see NOTICE.md.