ZedTerm

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ZedTerm is a standalone terminal application forked from Zed. It uses the published gpui-pre framework snapshots and retains its own UI, theme, settings, and terminal implementation without depending on editor features.

The fork has since diverged and does not track upstream, so a fix here is free to leave Zed's behavior behind. Formats users share with a Zed installation — keymap.json, the themes and extensions layout, the data directory — stay compatible on purpose. See .rules for what this means when changing code.

macOS is the primary platform. Linux builds and deb packaging are also supported.

Features

• PTY and shell support with Alacritty terminal parsing
• Scrolling, search, selection, clipboard, and bell notifications
• Multiple windows, tabs, split panes, and moving tabs between windows
• Pane zoom, focus switching, and tab reordering
• URL, OSC 8, and path link support
• File uploads and downloads via trzsz and ZMODEM
• Terminal settings, keymap editing, theme extension management, and file manager integration

See the FAQ for common questions and shell configuration tips.

Project Structure

• crates/terminal_core — Terminal state, PTY handling, parsing, scrolling, and search
• crates/terminal_app — Application startup, windows, tabs, panes, settings, and rendering
• crates/ui, crates/theme, crates/settings, crates/fs, crates/paths, ... — infrastructure inherited from Zed. Prefer the two crates above when behavior is specific to this app, and change a shared crate only when the change belongs there.
• GPUI core, macros, platform backends, HTTP interfaces, and refinement traits come from the gpui-pre family, pinned to =0.3.1 in Cargo.toml and resolved in Cargo.lock. Local gpui_util and gpui_shared_string remain for independent support-library users.

See docs/TODO.md for current work, planned features, and unsupported items. docs/PLAN.md and docs/GAPS.md contain archived project context.

Development

Run commands from the repository root:

# Check the application
cargo check --locked -p terminal_app

# Run a development instance with a separate data directory
cargo run --locked -p terminal_app --bin terminal-app -- --user-data-dir /tmp/zedterm-dev

# Run the tests of every crate you touched
cargo test --locked -p terminal_app --lib
cargo test --locked -p terminal_core --lib
cargo test --locked -p settings --lib

# Check formatting and lints
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --locked -p terminal_app --all-targets -- --deny warnings

ZedTerm allows one process per data directory. Without --user-data-dir, a running ZedTerm opens a new window and the newly built process exits successfully. That window belongs to the existing process and does not run your newly compiled code. Close the previous development instance before rerunning with the same directory. See the FAQ for details.

For code changes, also run git diff --check. Changes affecting interaction behavior should be smoke-tested on macOS.

Framework upgrades also require cargo check --locked --workspace --all-targets, cargo test --locked --workspace --all-targets, and cargo clippy --locked --workspace --all-targets -- --deny warnings. Keep font-kit, wayland, and x11 enabled on both the core and platform dependencies; core features alone do not select the platform backends. The macro-only inspector feature and the shared proptest patch work around snapshot/test-macro defects documented in docs/GPUI_PRE_MIGRATION.md.

Build releases with cargo build --locked --release -p terminal_app --bin terminal-app. Use scripts/package-linux-deb.sh or scripts/package-macos-dmg.sh to package the resulting binary. macOS builds still require the Xcode Metal tools; the external Apple backend embeds its compiled shaders, so no local GPUI checkout or additional shader resource copying is needed.

License

ZedTerm inherits its licenses from Zed: GPL-3.0 (LICENSE-GPL) and Apache-2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE, copyright Zed Industries, Inc.). The published gpui-pre family is Apache-2.0 licensed and retains Zed Industries' attribution. Bundled fonts, icons, and themes retain the license and attribution files under assets/.