ori-term
A GPU-accelerated, multiplexer-native terminal emulator written from scratch in Rust.
About
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Install
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Features
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Documentation
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Roadmap
Status: alpha. Daily-driver-capable on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Core terminal emulation, GPU-accelerated rendering, splits, floating panes, tabs, themes, ligatures, and inline images all work today. Sessions that survive after the window closes, remote shells over SSH/WSL, and a headless terminal-in-terminal client are still landing — see Roadmap.
About
ori-term is a terminal emulator that bundles three things normally stacked together — a terminal, a multiplexer, and a window shell — into one application:
- GPU-accelerated rendering. Smooth scrolling under heavy output. Idle CPU drops to almost nothing when nothing is changing, so battery and fans stay quiet.
- Splits, tabs, and floating panes built in. No tmux required. Drag tabs between windows; nested splits and floating panes layer freely.
- Cross-platform from day one. Windows, Linux, and macOS get the same terminal — same features, same keybindings, same look. No platform was an afterthought.
Full feature list and screenshots live on the website: oriterm.com/features.
Install
Pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows are on the GitHub releases page.
On Linux and macOS, the install script picks the right binary, downloads it, and drops it in ~/.local/bin:
curl -fsSL https://oriterm.com/install.sh | sh
See oriterm.com/install for Windows downloads and per-platform notes.
Build from source
The Cargo workspace lives in term_repo/. The toolchain is pinned in rust-toolchain.toml — rustup selects it automatically.
git clone https://github.com/upstat-io/ori-term.git
cd ori-term/term_repo
cargo build --release
To cross-compile for Windows from Linux/WSL:
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
./build-all.sh runs both targets; ./test-all.sh runs the workspace test suite.
Roadmap
| Step | Status |
|---|---|
| Standards-compliant terminal emulation (full escape-sequence support, modes, palette, SGR, OSC, DCS) | Complete |
| GPU-accelerated rendering with smooth scrolling and near-zero idle CPU | Complete |
| Cross-platform window chrome (frameless, Aero Snap, transparent blur, vibrancy) | Complete |
| Splits, floating panes, tabs, multi-window | Complete |
| Multiplexer foundation (background process for shell sessions, embedded fallback for sandboxes) | Complete |
| Image protocols (Kitty graphics, Sixel, iTerm2 inline images) — decoding shipped, animation/z-index hardening in progress | Partial |
| Multi-process window architecture — separate process per window for crash isolation and shared sessions | Partial |
| Terminal protocol extensions (terminfo query, broader window manipulation reports) | Partial |
| Session persistence + remote domains (SSH, WSL) | Todo |
| Remote attach + network transport (TCP+TLS, Mosh-style predictive echo) | Todo |
Headless TUI client (oriterm-tui — tmux replacement) |
Todo |
| Lua scripting + command palette + vi mode + hints | Todo |
| macOS app bundle, native scrollbars, minimap | Todo |
Live roadmap: oriterm.com/roadmap.
Inspiration
ori-term borrows ideas from many terminal emulators and UI projects: Alacritty (terminal state model, lock discipline), Ghostty (cell-by-cell reflow, fast mode tables), WezTerm (multiplexer domain model, portable PTY abstraction), Chrome (tab drag-and-drop, GPU UI), VS Code (frameless window chrome), tmux (daemon architecture), Mosh (predictive echo), Catppuccin (default palette), and Ratatui / termenv / lipgloss (testing and color-detection patterns).
The Name
ori — from the Japanese 折り (folding). Tabs fold between windows the way you fold paper.
License
MIT.