Monstar 0.1.0

Monstar 0.1.0

Released 2026-07-15.

Monstar 0.1.0 is the first release of a Linux-native terminal built directly
for Wayland and integrated with the surrounding desktop session.

Highlights

• Runs as a native Wayland client with fractional scaling, text-input-v3 IME,
  clipboard and primary selection, cursor shapes, activation, server-side
  decorations, app icons, and compositor system-bell support.
• Uses Ghostty's terminal core for modern terminal compatibility, including
  kitty graphics, OSC 8 hyperlinks, synchronized output, rich color reporting,
  and the xterm-ghostty terminfo definition.
• Integrates with Linux desktop services for link opening, color-scheme
  discovery, notifications, launcher progress, and optional systemd scopes.
• Keeps interaction responsive with asynchronous rasterization, damage-aware
  rendering, smooth touchpad inertia, and independently tunable wheel input.

Added

Terminal experience

• Live scrollback search that continues updating while terminal output arrives.
• Clipboard, primary selection, rectangular selection, drag-and-drop paste,
  and OSC 52 clipboard support.
• OSC 8 hyperlinks and detected URI opening through desktop portals, with an
  xdg-open fallback when the portal is unavailable.
• Kitty graphics support for direct images, PNG data, and Unicode placeholders.
• OSC 133 prompt navigation, desktop notifications, taskbar progress, and
  in-band terminal size reports.
• Runtime font-size controls, configurable new-window launching, and command
  execution through either direct arguments or /bin/sh -c.

Appearance and configuration

• Fontconfig font selection with FreeType rasterization, HarfBuzz shaping,
  fallback faces, color emoji, and built-in terminal symbol sprites.
• Built-in light and dark defaults plus a bundled collection of named iTerm2
  color schemes and support for custom themes.
• Configurable font units, window padding, background opacity, terminal colors,
  storage limits, scrolling behavior, application identity, and startup command.
• Live configuration reload from the keyboard or SIGUSR1 for visual and
  interaction settings that can safely change in a running window.

Linux integration and installation

• XDG desktop portal integration for opening links, files, and directories and
  for following the desktop color scheme.
• D-Bus integration for notifications and launcher progress, including window
  activation from notification actions.
• systemd integration for grouping new windows and optionally placing each
  shell in its own transient scope.
• Installation of the executable, desktop entry, scalable app icon, manual
  pages, and bundled themes through the Zig build.

Requirements

• Monstar runs on Linux under a Wayland compositor.
• Building from source requires Zig 0.16, the Wayland 1.25 core schema,
  wayland-protocols 1.49, and development libraries for Wayland, fontconfig,
  FreeType, HarfBuzz, xkbcommon, and D-Bus.
• Wayland protocol versions are negotiated at runtime, and optional integrations
  retain fallbacks when the corresponding desktop service is unavailable.