bterm

GPU-accelerated macOS terminal. Electron shell, xterm.js rendering, node-pty backend.

Features

• GPU rendering via xterm.js's WebGL renderer (Metal through Chromium/ANGLE)
• Tabs with drag-to-reorder, inline double-click rename, close-confirmation dialog
• Shell integration for zsh and bash — prompt marks, ⌘↑/⌘↓ prompt navigation, tab status dots (running spinner, attention dot)
• Live tab titles — reflect the running command via OSC 0
• Unified ⌘⇧P palette — fuzzy search across both app actions and shell history in one overlay
• Find in terminal (⌘F) with match highlights and counter
• Inline images — drag a PNG / JPG / GIF onto a terminal and it renders via iTerm2's imgcat protocol; thumbnail size configurable
• Font picker with previews using Chromium's Local Font Access API
• Window snapping — resizing snaps the window to whole-cell boundaries so the grid never has a partial row or column
• Themes — gruvbox-dark (default), nord, solarized-dark, light
• Flat, minimalist UI — single chrome band, subtle tab separators, no background tints; an accent underline marks the active tab

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
⌘T	New tab
⌘W	Close tab (with confirmation, toggleable)
⌘K	Clear scrollback + viewport
⌘F	Find in terminal
⌘⇧] / ⌘⇧[	Next / prev tab
⌘1 – ⌘9	Jump to tab N
⌘⇧P	Open palette (actions + history)
⌘↑ / ⌘↓	Jump to prev / next prompt
⌘,	Settings

All bindings are rebindable in Settings → Keyboard shortcuts (except ⌘1–9).

Requirements

• macOS 11+ (tested on 25.x / Apple Silicon)
• Node.js 20+ and npm

Development

git clone git@github.com:dbrentley/bterm.git
cd bterm
npm install
npm run dev

npm run dev hot-reloads renderer changes and restarts on main/preload changes.

Building a distributable

npm run pack         # unsigned .app for local smoke-testing
npm run dist:fast    # signed, not notarized (~2 min) — runs on your Mac only
npm run dist         # signed + notarized arm64 .dmg (~10 min)
npm run dist:universal  # signed + notarized arm64 + x64 (~15 min)

Code signing + notarization require an Apple Developer ID cert in your login Keychain and App Store Connect API credentials in a gitignored .env file:

APPLE_API_KEY=/path/to/AuthKey_XXXXXXXXXX.p8
APPLE_API_KEY_ID=XXXXXXXXXX
APPLE_API_ISSUER=<uuid>

electron-builder auto-discovers your Developer ID cert; scripts/release.sh loads .env and wraps the build in caffeinate -i.

Configuration

Settings live at ~/Library/Application Support/bterm/settings.json. Edit via ⌘, inside the app — includes font, theme, cursor style, scrollback, shell override, shell-integration toggle, share-history toggle, image thumbnail size, close-confirmation toggle, and all key rebinds.

Architecture

Three processes:

• main (src/main/) — Node. Owns the BrowserWindow, all PTYs, config + history read/write, shell-integration script injection.
• preload (src/preload/) — narrow window.bterm IPC surface exposed via contextBridge.
• renderer (src/renderer/) — DOM + xterm.js, split into small modules (tabs, pane, palette, find, settings-ui, font-picker, window-snap, drop, etc.).

License

MIT