slosh

A terminal multiplexer: panes, tabs, and sessions you can detach from, written in C on top of libghostty-vt.

Install

macOS

With Homebrew:

brew tap sl0p/slosh https://git.sl0p.foo/homebrew-slosh.git
brew install slosh

Linux

The same tap works under Homebrew on Linux. Building from source needs zig 0.16 and nothing else, and the result is one static binary that runs on any distro:

make vendor    # the vendored terminal core, once
make all       # about a second
sudo make install         # optional: /usr/local/bin/slosh
# make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local   # ...or somewhere you own

(The source build works on a mac too; Homebrew is simply the shorter road there.)

Windows

Windows 10/11, x86-64 and ARM64, as one slosh.exe with no runtime dependency beyond the OS. Panes are ConPTYs and sessions are AF_UNIX sockets, so everything below works there too — see docs/windows.md.

make -f Makefile.windows ARCH=x86_64    # or ARCH=aarch64; cross-compiles too

Run

slosh              # attach to session "main", creating it if needed
slosh -s work      # a named session
slosh ls           # what is running

Sessions survive detaching, and your ssh connection dying. Then C-a \ to split, C-a ? for the keys, C-a p for every command by name.

Docs

docs/: keys · panes · configuration · windows · shaders · chrome · layouts · scripting · how it works

make docs renders the same pages as a static site into build/docs, with no dependencies: one file of Python and one stylesheet.

What is different about it

• The mouse works properly. Click the middle of a border to split toward it, drag a gap to move a boundary, drag a pane by its title to swap it. Everything drawn registers what it is as it is drawn, so a click and a preview cannot disagree. That is also how the split target can be part of an edge without the highlight and the hit ever drifting apart.
• The layout is recomputed, never stored. Small terminal? The tab becomes a list of headers, and comes back to exactly the arrangement you had.
• A pane told to run something keeps its output when that thing exits, with [re-run] and [close] in its frame.
• Configuration is one KDL file that reloads on save, can be built from included pieces, and refuses a broken file instead of half-applying it.
• Colour passes over cells: dim, tint, rulers, spotlights, and a border that can flash when a pane rings, with strengths written as expressions.
• Scriptable to the same depth it is usable: one JSON object per line over the session's socket, and a pane can draw its own status bar and buttons with an escape sequence.

Design notes and the twenty-one decisions behind it: DESIGN.md.