A modern, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator for macOS
LanTerm is a terminal emulator for macOS built with Electron, React, and xterm.js. It features GPU-accelerated rendering, split panes, full session persistence, a unified command palette, vim-style hints mode, smart clickable links, 10 color themes, and an extensible plugin sidebar with 6 built-in plugins. Every keybinding is rebindable.
# Install dependencies (includes native node-pty rebuild for Electron)
npm install
# Start dev server with hot reload
npm run devRequires macOS, Node.js >= 18, and npm.
npm run build # Production build
npm run preview # Preview production build
npm test # Run all tests (Playwright e2e + Vitest unit)
npm run test:unit # Unit tests only- GPU-accelerated rendering via WebGL with canvas fallback
- Split panes — horizontal splits with keyboard navigation
- Session persistence — terminals, folders, and layout survive restarts
- Command palette — commands, terminal search, and shell history in one place
- Hints mode — keyboard-driven link activation (vim-style)
- 10 built-in themes — plus light/dark UI and per-terminal overrides
- Plugin sidebar — 6 built-in plugins, extensible architecture
- Smart links — Cmd+click file paths, git hashes, and URLs
- Fully rebindable — 30+ commands with customizable keybindings
- GPU-accelerated rendering (WebGL → canvas fallback)
- Split panes with
⌘D, navigate with⌘⌥↑/⌘⌥↓ - Automatic CWD tracking via OSC 7 with lsof fallback
- Full session persistence — terminals, splits, scroll state, and working directories are saved and restored
- Duplicate any terminal with
⌘⇧D - Inline search with
⌘F - Trash & recovery — deleted terminals are soft-deleted for 30 days
10 built-in terminal color schemes:
| Default Dark | Default Light | Dracula |
| Solarized Dark | Solarized Light | One Dark |
| Monokai | Nord | Gruvbox Dark |
| Tokyo Night |
The app supports light and dark UI modes, and each terminal can override the global theme.
Open with ⌘P. Three input modes controlled by prefix:
| Prefix | Mode | Description |
|---|---|---|
> |
Commands | Search all commands, plugin actions, and custom commands |
/ |
Find | Search visible terminal content across all terminals |
! |
History | Search shell command history |
| (none) | All | Combined view with history-boosted sorting |
Press ⌘⇧U to activate hints mode. Every clickable target in the terminal viewport gets a letter label — type the label to activate it. No mouse needed.
Detected targets:
- URLs —
http://andhttps://links - File paths — absolute, relative,
~/paths with optional:line:col - Git hashes — 7–40 character hex commit references
Cmd+click to interact with detected patterns:
- File paths → opens in your editor (supports
path/file.ts:10:5line:col syntax) - Git hashes → runs
git show <hash>in the terminal - URLs → opens in the default browser
- Hierarchical folders with drag-and-drop
- Custom folder icons
- Favorites for quick access
- Rename terminals with
⌘L
Six built-in sidebar plugins:
| Plugin | Description |
|---|---|
| Git | Commit graph for the active repository |
| Claude | Usage stats and recent Claude Code session history |
| Files | Browse files in the current directory |
| Worktrees | List, create, and remove git worktrees |
| Buttons | Custom buttons that run scripts in the background |
| Vim Shortcuts | Searchable vim keyboard shortcut reference |
Plugins are installed/uninstalled at runtime via the Plugin Gallery. See Creating Plugins below.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| New terminal | ⌘T |
| Close terminal | ⌘W |
| Previous terminal | ⌘⌥← |
| Next terminal | ⌘⌥→ |
| Duplicate terminal | ⌘⇧D |
| Rename terminal | ⌘L |
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Split pane | ⌘D |
| Focus up | ⌘⌥↑ |
| Focus down | ⌘⌥↓ |
| Move pane left | ⌘⇧← |
| Move pane right | ⌘⇧→ |
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Toggle left sidebar | ⌘← |
| Toggle right sidebar | ⌘→ |
| Command palette | ⌘P |
| Hints mode | ⌘⇧U |
| Find in terminal | ⌘F |
| Settings | ⌘, |
| New window | ⌘⇧N |
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Increase font | ⌘= |
| Decrease font | ⌘- |
| Reset font | ⌘0 |
| Zoom in | ⌘⇧= |
| Zoom out | ⌘⇧- |
| Reset zoom | ⌘⇧0 |
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Toggle prompt | ⌘K |
| Activate plugin 1–9 | ⌘1 – ⌘9 |
All keybindings are fully rebindable in Settings.
LanTerm follows Electron's three-process model:
src/
├── main/ # Electron main process
│ ├── index.ts # Window creation, IPC registration
│ ├── ptyManager.ts # PTY lifecycle, CWD tracking
│ └── stateManager.ts # JSON persistence
├── preload/
│ └── index.ts # contextBridge → window.termAPI
├── renderer/ # React UI
│ ├── App.tsx # Root layout, keybindings, state hydration
│ ├── store/ # Zustand state management
│ ├── components/ # Sidebar, TerminalPane, Settings, etc.
│ └── designTokens.ts # Shared style constants
├── shared/ # Cross-process types & constants
│ ├── types.ts # AppState, Folder, Session, Settings
│ ├── ipcChannels.ts # IPC channel definitions
│ └── keybindings.ts # Command definitions & binding resolution
└── plugins/ # Modular sidebar plugin system
├── registry.ts # Plugin collection
├── git/
├── claude-history/
├── file-browser/
├── worktree/
├── vim-shortcuts/
└── buttons/
State is managed with Zustand (with subscribeWithSelector), hydrated from a JSON file on launch, and saved on structural changes with a 1-second debounce.
All IPC flows through typed constants in src/shared/ipcChannels.ts and the window.termAPI bridge — renderer code never touches ipcRenderer directly.
Each plugin lives in src/plugins/<name>/ and needs at minimum:
manifest.ts— plugin metadata (id,name,description,order,PanelComponent)renderer/<Name>Panel.tsx— the sidebar panel component
Register in src/plugins/registry.ts and add to the default installedPlugins array in the Zustand store.
For plugins that need main-process access (filesystem, child processes), add IPC channels, handlers, and preload bridge methods. See CLAUDE.md for the full registration checklist.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Runtime | Electron 33 |
| UI | React 18 |
| Terminal | xterm.js 5, WebGL addon |
| PTY | node-pty |
| State | Zustand 5 |
| Language | TypeScript 5 |
| Build | electron-vite, Vite 5 |
| Icons | FontAwesome 7 |
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