Ghostty is the default terminal and only a [tmux](/terminal/tmux) client. tmux owns tabs (windows), splits (panes), sessions, and persistence. Ghostty draws the text and handles the clipboard and font size.
It is the default everywhere a desktop picks a terminal: `$TERMINAL` in the [Umbriel](/desktop/umbriel) session (Noctalia runs `Terminal=true` launcher entries with it), and the first entry of `~/.config/xdg-terminals.list` (`dot_config/xdg-terminals.list`, desktop roles only) for `xdg-terminal-exec`, `niri-launch terminal`, and `omarchy-launch-terminal`.
Every Ghostty window gets its own tmux session; no two windows mirror the same one. `~/.local/bin/ghostty-tmux` (source `dot_local/bin/executable_ghostty-tmux`) runs for each new window:
1. If a detached session exists (left by a closed window, or restored by continuum after a reboot), it attaches to the oldest one, by session id. Background task sessions from `pj-palette` (`@pj_task` set, named `<session>:<task>`) are never reclaimed.
Before starting tmux, the script puts mise's shims on `PATH`. A server started from a desktop-launched Ghostty therefore finds the tools tmux plugins shell out to: bun for the palette, fzf, and zoxide.
The window title is the tmux session name (`set-titles-string '#S'`), so the compositor's window groups list one entry per session. tmux's tab bar keeps its own fixed cyberdream colors, so it no longer matches Ghostty's Noctalia background.
Closing a window only detaches its session; the shells keep running in the tmux server. In tmux, `detach-on-destroy no-detached` means killing a session moves the window to a *detached* session, or closes the window if there is none, so it never lands on another window's session. Across reboots, tmux-continuum saves every 10 minutes. The first Ghostty window starts the server, and that triggers continuum's restore. See [tmux](/terminal/tmux#persistence).
`keybind = clear` comes first and drops every Ghostty default: tabs, splits, `alt+N` goto_tab, and `ctrl+alt+arrow` goto_split. Those chords then reach tmux, which binds `alt+1…9` and `ctrl+alt+arrows` itself. `ctrl+h/j/k/l` also pass straight through to tmux's vim-aware pane navigation, which hands off to and from nvim's splits (see [tmux](/terminal/tmux#keybindings)). Each `ctrl+shift` chord sends tmux's prefix, `ctrl+b` (`\x02`), followed by a key.
| `shift+enter` | Sends `ESC[13;2u` (CSI-u Shift+Enter), which tmux passes through to the pane, so coding agents such as omp and Claude Code insert a newline instead of submitting. Not `\n`: that is `ctrl+j`, tmux's pane-down key |
| `noctalia` | Active. Written by Noctalia's built-in `ghostty` template (enabled in `[theme.templates] builtin_ids` of `~/.local/state/noctalia/settings.toml`, which is runtime state, not managed) from the active shell palette, currently the Monochrome community palette with pure black: background `#000000`, foreground `#828282`, greys for the ANSI colors. Noctalia rewrites it and reloads Ghostty on every theme change; the repo's `.gitignore` excludes it. |
| `cyberdream` | Upstream `extras/ghostty/cyberdream` from [cyberdream.nvim](https://github.com/scottmckendry/cyberdream.nvim), the palette shared with tmux, nvim, yazi, and television. |
