Devolutions Terminal

A cross-platform terminal emulator implemented in C# on .NET 10, published with NativeAOT, and rendered with Avalonia 12 / Skia:

• ConPTY on Windows and a real forkpty transport on Linux and macOS
• Azure Cloud Shell for remote Azure sessions
• selectable built-in or Ghostty VT engine
• Windows Terminal-compatible settings.json, actions, keybindings, and dt CLI

This is the Devolutions Terminal source tree. Projects, namespaces, and the GUI host use Devolutions.Terminal.*. The CLI executable is dt.

Build and run

dotnet test Devolutions.Terminal.slnx
dotnet run --project src/Devolutions.Terminal

NativeAOT publish

dotnet publish src/Devolutions.Terminal -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained

The native executable is written to src/Devolutions.Terminal/bin/Release/net10.0/win-x64/publish/Devolutions.Terminal.exe.

macOS NativeAOT app bundles (Darwin only):

scripts/Build-MacOsPackage.sh osx-arm64 0.1.0 artifacts/packages
bash scripts/Test-MacOsPackage.sh osx-arm64 artifacts/packages/*.zip

Linux x64 and ARM64 NativeAOT packages are built on Linux with:

scripts/Build-LinuxPackage.sh linux-x64 0.1.0 artifacts/packages all
scripts/Build-LinuxPackage.sh linux-arm64 0.1.0 artifacts/packages all
bash scripts/Test-LinuxPackage.sh linux-x64 artifacts/packages/*-linux-x64.*

The builder emits .tar.gz, .deb, .rpm, .AppImage, and .sha256 files. Every format consumes the same normalized /opt/devolutions-terminal payload and /usr desktop integration layout. SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH controls package timestamps.

After extracting a tarball at the filesystem root:

sudo /opt/devolutions-terminal/linux/Install-LinuxDesktopIntegration.sh install
/opt/devolutions-terminal/linux/Install-LinuxDesktopIntegration.sh register-protocol
/opt/devolutions-terminal/linux/Install-LinuxDesktopIntegration.sh set-default-terminal

MSIX packages

.\src\Devolutions.Terminal.Package\Scripts\Build-Packages.ps1

Development signing, trust, install, validation, and uninstall commands are in src/Devolutions.Terminal.Package/README.md.

Settings and engines

Settings are stored at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Devolutions\Terminal\settings.json on Windows, under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/devolutions-terminal on Linux (usual ~/.config fallback), and at ~/Library/Application Support/Devolutions/Terminal/ on macOS. Set WT_BASE_SETTINGS_PATH to use a directory for settings.json and state.json (same contract as Devolutions' Windows Terminal distribution). Set DTERM_SETTINGS_PATH (or WT_DOTNET_SETTINGS_PATH) to load a specific settings file. On Windows, WT_PARENT_WINDOW_HANDLE embeds the window as a child of that HWND. alwaysShowTabs: false hides the tab row when only one tab is open.

Set "experimental.terminalEngine": "ghostty" to use the pinned libghostty-vt engine globally. A profile can override it with "builtin" or "ghostty". ConPTY remains the Windows process transport for both engines.

The compiled-XAML settings editor is documented in docs/settings-editor.md.

Architecture

Devolutions.Terminal.Core         VT parser + text buffer + terminal engine
Devolutions.Terminal.Ghostty      NativeAOT-safe libghostty-vt engine adapter
Devolutions.Terminal.Render       Immutable plans + HarfBuzz/Skia glyph renderer
Devolutions.Terminal.Connection   ConPTY + Linux PTY + Azure Cloud Shell
Devolutions.Terminal.Settings     Layered Windows Terminal-compatible JSON settings
Devolutions.Terminal.Control      Avalonia TermControl renderer
Devolutions.Terminal.App   Tabs, title bar, panes, actions, window behavior
Devolutions.Terminal       NativeAOT executable and composition root

The measured remaining parity contract is in docs/parity-status.md. Architecture decisions are recorded in docs/decisions. Renderer contracts are documented in docs/renderer.md. Control, clipboard, IME, and accessibility contracts are documented in docs/control-accessibility.md. Advanced VT protocols are documented in docs/advanced-vt-protocols.md. Azure Cloud Shell is documented in docs/azure-cloud-shell.md. Build and release gates are documented in docs/release.md.

Compatibility inventory

The port tracks Windows Terminal settings, actions, VT dispatch, command line, and settings-page surfaces in compat/windows-terminal.json. Tests use that checked-in snapshot. Regenerating it requires a separate Microsoft Windows Terminal C++ checkout:

dotnet run --project tools/Devolutions.Terminal.PortInventory -- <windows-terminal-checkout> compat/windows-terminal.json