ghostty_vte_flutter 0.0.3+1

Flutter terminal UI widgets powered by Ghostty's VT engine. Provides GhosttyTerminalView, GhosttyTerminalController, and automatic wasm initialisation for web targets.

ghostty_vte_flutter

Flutter terminal UI widgets powered by Ghostty's VT engine. Drop-in GhosttyTerminalView and GhosttyTerminalController for embedding a terminal in any Flutter app — on desktop, mobile, and the web.

Features

Widget / Class	Description
GhosttyTerminalView	CustomPaint-based terminal renderer with keyboard input
GhosttyTerminalController	ChangeNotifier that manages a shell subprocess (native) or remote transport (web)
initializeGhosttyVteWeb()	One-liner that loads ghostty-vt.wasm from Flutter assets on web

This package re-exports all of ghostty_vte, so you only need a single import.

Platform support

Platform	Native shell	Web (wasm)
Linux	✅	✅
macOS	✅	✅
Windows	✅	✅
Android	✅	✅
iOS	—	✅

Installation

dependencies:
  ghostty_vte_flutter: ^0.0.1

No separate ghostty_vte dependency is needed — it's re-exported automatically.

Quick start

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:ghostty_vte_flutter/ghostty_vte_flutter.dart';

Future<void> main() async {
  WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized();
  await initializeGhosttyVteWeb(); // no-op on native, loads wasm on web
  runApp(const MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => const MaterialApp(home: TerminalPage());
}

class TerminalPage extends StatefulWidget {
  const TerminalPage({super.key});
  @override
  State<TerminalPage> createState() => _TerminalPageState();
}

class _TerminalPageState extends State<TerminalPage> {
  final _ctrl = GhosttyTerminalController();

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _ctrl.start();
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    _ctrl.dispose();
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(title: const Text('Terminal')),
      body: GhosttyTerminalView(controller: _ctrl, autofocus: true),
    );
  }
}

Widgets & controllers

GhosttyTerminalView

A CustomPaint widget that renders terminal output and routes keyboard events through the Ghostty key encoder.

GhosttyTerminalView(
  controller: myController,
  autofocus: true,
  backgroundColor: const Color(0xFF0A0F14),
  foregroundColor: const Color(0xFFE6EDF3),
  fontSize: 14,
  lineHeight: 1.35,
  padding: const EdgeInsets.all(12),
)

Property	Type	Default	Description
controller	GhosttyTerminalController	required	Terminal session to render
autofocus	bool	false	Request focus on mount
focusNode	FocusNode?	null	Custom focus node
backgroundColor	Color	#0A0F14	Canvas background
foregroundColor	Color	#E6EDF3	Text color
fontSize	double	14	Monospace font size
lineHeight	double	1.35	Line height multiplier
padding	EdgeInsets	all(12)	Content padding

GhosttyTerminalController

A ChangeNotifier managing a terminal session.

• Native: spawns a real shell subprocess via script (for PTY behavior) with fallback to Process.start.
• Web: same API surface — feed output through appendDebugOutput() and read input via write() / sendKey() to connect a remote backend.

final controller = GhosttyTerminalController(
  maxLines: 2000,
  defaultShell: '/bin/bash',
);

await controller.start();
controller.write('ls -la\n', sanitizePaste: true);

controller.sendKey(
  key: GhosttyKey.GHOSTTY_KEY_C,
  mods: GhosttyModsMask.ctrl,
  utf8Text: 'c',
  unshiftedCodepoint: 0x63,
);

print(controller.title);     // window title from OSC
print(controller.lines);     // buffered output lines
print(controller.isRunning); // subprocess alive?

await controller.stop();
controller.dispose();

Property / Method	Description
start({shell, arguments})	Start a shell subprocess
stop()	Kill the subprocess
write(text, {sanitizePaste})	Write text to stdin
writeBytes(bytes)	Write raw bytes to stdin
sendKey(...)	Encode and send a key event
clear()	Clear the output buffer
title	Current terminal title (from OSC 0/2)
lines	Buffered output lines
isRunning	Whether the subprocess is active

Web setup

1. Build the wasm module:

   cd pkgs/vte/ghostty_vte
   dart run tool/build_wasm.dart
   

   This produces ghostty-vt.wasm in the Flutter assets directory.

2. Initialise before runApp:

   await initializeGhosttyVteWeb();
   

   This is a no-op on native platforms.

3. Build for web:

   flutter build web --wasm
   

Native setup

No manual steps needed. The ghostty_vte build hook runs automatically during flutter run and flutter build, producing the correct native library for your target. Just make sure Zig and the Ghostty source are available — see the ghostty_vte README for details.

Or download prebuilt libraries to skip the Zig requirement entirely.

Related packages

Package	Description
ghostty_vte	Core Dart FFI bindings (re-exported by this package)
portable_pty	Cross-platform PTY subprocess control
portable_pty_flutter	Flutter controller for PTY sessions

License

MIT — see LICENSE.