HackerTerm

v0.9.0 — a high-fidelity, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator built for the HackerOS aesthetic.

HackerTerm pairs a Rust/Tauri 2 backend (via portable-pty) with a Solid.js + xterm.js frontend to deliver a fast, native-feeling terminal with split panes, session persistence, and a fully customizable look.

Screenshot

Features

• Split panes — divide any tab horizontally or vertically, drag to resize, close individual panes.
• Tabs — rename (double-click), reorder by drag & drop, duplicate, close others, right-click context menu.
• Session persistence — reopens your tabs, panes, working directories and environment variables on next launch (toggleable).
• In-terminal search — Ctrl+Shift+F to find text in the scrollback buffer.
• GPU rendering — WebGL-accelerated output via xterm-addon-webgl, with automatic fallback to canvas rendering if unsupported.
• Unicode 11 support — correct width handling for emoji, CJK and combining characters.
• Custom themes — five built-in themes (Hacker, Cyberpunk, Dracula, Nord Dark, Tokyo Night) plus a full color-picker editor to create and save your own.
• Rebindable shortcuts — every keyboard shortcut (new tab, split, search, copy/paste, …) can be re-mapped from Settings.
• Per-tab working directory & environment variables — right-click "New Tab" for a dialog to set a custom cwd and extra env vars.
• Custom fonts — type any font family, or use "Detect system fonts" (Local Font Access API, Chromium-based webviews) to pick from installed fonts.
• Multi-language UI — English, Polski, Deutsch, Español out of the box; adding a language is just a new file in src/locales/.
• Visible error handling — config/session/terminal failures surface as toast notifications instead of failing silently.
• .hk config format — a simple, human-editable config file (see Configuration).

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• Rust (stable toolchain)
• Tauri prerequisites for your OS (system WebView, build tools, etc.)

Getting started

# install frontend dependencies
npm install

# run in development mode (hot-reloading Tauri window)
npm run tauri dev

# build a release bundle for your platform
npm run tauri build

Frontend-only development (browser preview, without the Rust/PTY backend — terminals won't actually spawn a shell) is available via npm run dev.

Configuration

HackerTerm stores its settings in a plain-text .hk file at:

~/.config/HackerOS/Hacker-Term/config.hk

It's created automatically on first run from config/template.hk and re-saved whenever you change a setting in the UI. You can edit it by hand — most fields take effect on restart. See the template for the full list of keys ([appearance], [terminal], [advanced]).

Open tab/pane session state (used by "Restore tabs on startup") is stored separately at:

~/.config/HackerOS/Hacker-Term/session.json

Default keyboard shortcuts

All of these are rebindable from Settings → Shortcuts.

Action	Default
New tab	Ctrl+T
Close tab	Ctrl+W
Copy selection	Ctrl+Shift+C
Paste from clipboard	Ctrl+Shift+V
Search in terminal	Ctrl+Shift+F
Split right	Ctrl+Alt+D
Split down	Ctrl+Alt+S
Close pane	Ctrl+Shift+X
Next tab	Ctrl+Tab
Previous tab	Ctrl+Shift+Tab

Project structure

Hacker-Term/
├── src/                    # Solid.js frontend
│   ├── components/         # XTermInstance, PaneView, modals, toasts, ...
│   ├── locales/            # One file per language (auto-discovered)
│   ├── services/           # Tauri command bindings
│   ├── utils/              # Pane-tree and keybinding helpers
│   ├── config.ts           # Themes, defaults, .hk <-> AppSettings mapping
│   └── App.tsx              # Root component
├── src-tauri/               # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── commands.rs      # Tauri command handlers
│   │   ├── pty_manager.rs   # PTY spawning/IO via portable-pty
│   │   ├── config.rs        # .hk config file parsing
│   │   └── session.rs       # Session (open tabs/panes) persistence
│   └── tauri.conf.json
└── config/template.hk       # Default config, copied on first run

Adding a language

Drop a new file into src/locales/, e.g. src/locales/fr.ts:

import type { LocaleModule } from './locale'

const fr: LocaleModule = {
  code: 'fr',
  name: 'Français',
  flag: '🇫🇷',
  translations: { /* ... copy the shape from en.ts ... */ },
}

export default fr

It's picked up automatically — no other file needs to change.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Please keep changes focused and include a short description of what you tested (npm run tauri dev on your platform, npx tsc --noEmit, etc.).

License

Mozilla Public License 2.0 — see LICENSE.