Kitty headless --single-instance

[applesud]

I'm looking to improve the startup time of kitty on my desktop, as I open and close instances quite frequently.
The --single-instance option makes a big difference, but it seems as though that single instance is closed when all of the windows are closed.

Could there be a way to run kitty as a headless single-instance (that could be launched on computer startup), similar to the Emacs --daemon option?

Sorry if this already exists; I couldn't see anything in the manual or docs.

[kovidgoyal]

No, I'm afraid not. Why does it matter if all instances get closed. All
that means is that only the first time you open a new window after
closing all windows it will be a bit slow (and we are talk order of
about 0.2 seconds here).

[dm17]

@kovidgoyal Figured I'd ask here... Can the --single-instance be specified in the kitty.conf on Linux so becomes default when launching kitty?

[kovidgoyal]

On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 12:29:50AM -0700, dm17 wrote: @kovidgoyal Figured I'd ask here... Can the --single-instance be specified in the kitty.conf on Linux so becomes default when launching kitty?

No, single instance must be specified at the command line, not in the conf files.

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_____________________________________ Dr. Kovid Goyal https://www.kovidgoyal.net https://calibre-ebook.com

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[AlaraBread]

would really like this feature, as its pretty common for me to open a terminal to do something quick and then close it again. it takes almost a full second on my computer to start kitty.

[kovidgoyal]

So put the following script named kitty in /usr/local/bin or somewhere else in your PATH ahead of where the actual kitty binary is:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/kitty --single-instance "$@"

[AlaraBread]

So put the following script named kitty in /usr/local/bin or somewhere else in your PATH ahead of where the actual kitty binary is:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/kitty --single-instance "$@"

this would only help with startup times if i already have another window of kitty open. opening the first window is still slow.

[kovidgoyal]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2025 at 05:14:28PM -0700, Alara Bread wrote: AlaraBread left a comment (kovidgoyal/kitty#3466) > So put the following script named kitty in /usr/local/bin or somewhere else in your PATH ahead of where the actual kitty binary is: > > ``` > #!/bin/sh > exec /usr/bin/kitty --single-instance "$@" > ``` this would only help with startup times if i already have another window of kitty open. opening the first window is still slow.

So keep a kitty window open in an unused workspace or minimized or whatever such affordance your window manager gives you.

[kovidgoyal]

Oh and incidentally, in nightly, you can do:

kitty -1 --session <(echo "launch --allow-remote-control --hold kitten @ resize-os-window --action=hide")

this will run single instance with a hidden (unmapped) window. At least it works on wayland havent tested on X11.

[oxysoft]

Single instance is required for kitty windows to communicate and interop so from the user's perspective their system will break randomly when a kitty is inevitably opened through a non-standard route that hasn't had the argument applied and suddenly the user's plumbing doesn't kick in as expected. For example they may have a shortcut with a script to attach a kitty terminal pane into another terminal window using slop to select, and it will exclude windows inexplicably if they are not on the same process.