Terminal

yaggui gives each repository a terminal panel at the bottom of its view, running your shell in the repository folder. If you prefer your own terminal application, switch the Terminal button to open it instead.

Open the integrated terminal

With a repository open, use any of these:

Entry point	Effect
Terminal button in the toolbar	Shows or hides the panel.
Ctrl+`, palette Show or hide the terminal	Opens the panel; if it is open but not focused, focuses the active terminal; if it is focused, hides the panel.
Ctrl+Shift+`, palette New terminal	Opens one more terminal in the panel.

Both shortcuts use the Control key on every OS, macOS included (⌃`, not ⌘`), and the key left of 1 whatever your keyboard layout. They are defaults: you can rebind them (see Palette and shortcuts).

The first time you show the panel, it starts a terminal.

Work with the panel

• Several terminals. The header lists the terminals as tabs, named after the shell (for example zsh or pwsh). Click + (New terminal) to add one.
• Close a terminal. Click the cross on its tab. This ends its shell. Closing the last terminal closes the panel.
• Hide the panel. Click Hide the terminal on the right of the header, or press Ctrl+` while a terminal has focus. The shells keep running.
• Resize. Drag the top edge of the panel, or focus it and press ↑ / ↓ (16 px per step). The shell receives the new size. The height is shared by all repositories and resets when yaggui restarts.

While a terminal has focus, every key goes to the shell, Ctrl+C included, except the command palette (⌘K, Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) and the two terminal shortcuts. To copy a selection, press ⌘C (Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows and Linux); to paste, ⌘V (Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows and Linux).

The terminal follows the app theme, the code font and the font size of Preferences. The Terminal style of Appearance gives it a near-black background. See Appearance.

Which shell runs

The shell starts in the repository’s working folder.

OS	Shell
macOS, Linux	Your login shell: $SHELL, otherwise the one of your user account.
Windows	PowerShell 7 (pwsh.exe), otherwise Windows PowerShell (powershell.exe), otherwise cmd.exe.

The shell inherits yaggui’s environment, with TERM=xterm-256color and COLORTERM=truecolor. Commands you type are yours: they do not appear in the command log and cannot be undone from yaggui.

When the shell exits (for example after exit), the terminal keeps its output and adds [process exited] (or [process exited with code N]). Close its tab, or open a new terminal.

How long terminals live

• Each repository has its own panel and its own terminals.
• Switching to another tab and back keeps the terminals running, with their output (up to 5000 lines of scrollback).
• The terminals of a repository end when you close its last tab, when you remove the repository from yaggui, and when you quit yaggui. They are not restored on the next launch.

Use an external terminal

To make the Terminal button open your own terminal application:

1. Open Preferences (⌘,, Ctrl+, on Windows and Linux) and go to Tools.
2. Set Terminal to External.
3. Optionally, click Configure… next to External terminal to choose which one. Test launches it.

In External mode, the Terminal button, Ctrl+` and Ctrl+Shift+` open the external terminal in the repository folder. Whatever the mode, the palette action Open the external terminal in the repository opens the external terminal.

Terminal setting dialog

Open it with Configure… in Preferences, the palette action Terminal settings…, the macOS app menu item Terminal Setting…, or Choose a terminal… on a terminal error. It has a single Terminal field; click Save. Leave it empty to use the system default.

OS	What to enter	Default (empty field)
macOS	An application name, for example iTerm or Warp. yaggui runs open -a <app> <repo folder>.	Terminal
Windows	A program name found in the PATH, or a full path. Windows Terminal (wt or wt.exe) receives -d <repo folder>; any other program starts with the repository as its current folder.	Windows Terminal, otherwise cmd
Linux	A program name found in the PATH, or a full path. It starts with the repository as its current folder, without arguments.	The first found of $TERMINAL, x-terminal-emulator, gnome-terminal, konsole, xfce4-terminal, kgx, tilix, alacritty, kitty, wezterm, foot, xterm

When you set a terminal, yaggui only tries that one. There is no argument template: on Windows and Linux, the program is started in the repository folder.

Errors

Message	What to do
Could not open a terminal: “The terminal “<name>” could not be started. Check its name in the terminal setting.”	Click Choose a terminal… and fix the name or path.
Could not open a terminal: “No terminal was found on this system. Choose the one to use in the terminal setting.”	Click Choose a terminal… and enter a terminal you have installed.
The terminal could not start: “The shell “<shell>” could not be started in the integrated terminal.”	Check that your shell ($SHELL on macOS and Linux) exists and runs, or use an external terminal.
“This terminal is closed: open a new one.”	The shell has ended: open a new terminal.
“The terminal must be a program or application name.”	The Terminal setting is too long or invalid: enter a plain name or path.

See Error messages for the full catalog.