Skip to content
Learn Ghostty

Rebuild Ghostty. Understand every piece.

Start with one Zig process. Add the App, PTY, parser, terminal state, native window, fonts, and GPU only when the previous version reaches a limitation.
Start Chapter 00See the method

HOW IT WORKS

01

Write it

Add only the code needed for the next observable behavior.

02

See it

Run the exact command and compare your result with a real captured artifact.

03

Compare it

Read the narrow historical and current Ghostty source that solves the production version.

DEPENDENCY FRONTIER

Build only what the current result needs

  1. 00Process entryReconstructed
  2. 01App lifecycleYou are here
  3. 02Runtime + SurfaceNext limitation
  4. 03Child process + PTYNot introduced
  5. 04I/O + parserNot introduced
  6. 05Terminal stateNot introduced
  7. 06Window + GPU + fontsNot introduced

CHAPTER 00

A process exists

Start with one Zig file, one build command, and one line of output. Understand every character before adding an App, PTY, parser, or window.

Begin Chapter 00Continue to Chapter 01

Field guides remain available

The existing ls, Codex, tmux, and SSH walkthroughs are retained as integration references. They are no longer the primary learning sequence.

Browse the field guides