liney-win

A terminal workspace for Windows — keep your repositories, worktrees, splits, and tabs in a single window.

A Windows take on macOS liney. Terminal core is Ghostty's libghostty-vt; the UI is fully self-drawn Win32 / Direct2D. Builds with MSVC + Zig.

English · 中文

---

Why liney-win?

A normal terminal gives you tabs. liney-win gives you a workspace. Your git repos and their worktrees live in the sidebar, every project carries its own icon, the folder tree follows whatever pane you're typing in, and your whole split layout comes back exactly as you left it. It's the multi-repo, multi-pane cockpit that Windows never shipped — drawn from scratch, so it starts instantly and depends on nothing but the OS.

✨ Features

🖥️ Terminal — powered by Ghostty's libghostty-vt core

• Full VT parsing: cursor / erase / scroll regions / insert-delete, SGR 16/256/truecolor rendered with bold/italic/underline/inverse/faint/strike, UTF-8, wide (CJK) glyphs, grapheme clusters
• Scrollback (wheel · Shift+PgUp) with reflow of long lines on resize
• Alternate screen — vim / less / git log just work, and the mouse wheel scrolls them (arrow keys are sent when the alt screen is active)
• Cursor — DECSCUSR block / bar / underline shapes (vim mode-switching), blinking per terminal modes, hollow when the pane is unfocused, OSC 12 color
• Mouse reporting — vim (:set mouse=a) / htop / mc receive clicks, drags and the wheel (SGR + legacy protocols); hold Shift to select text locally instead
• OSC-driven window title and cwd tracking (the file tree follows your shell)
• Selection + copy/paste — buffer-anchored (the highlight stays on its text while you scroll or output streams in), drag-select, double-click word / triple-click line, copy-on-select (opt-in), right-click menu, Ctrl+V / Shift+Insert paste, bracketed paste, an opt-out multi-line paste confirm; IME (CJK) with the candidate window at the cursor
• Find (Ctrl+F) — highlights every match in view and searches the whole scrollback: Enter/F3 jump match-to-match up through history, Shift+Enter walks back down
• Fonts — pick any monospace family + size in Settings, or zoom via Ctrl +/-/0 / Ctrl+Wheel; all remembered across launches
• Themes — 7 built-in presets (Emerald / Azure / Violet Night, Amber Dark, Rose Dark, Slate Frost, Paper Light), a live-preview theme dropdown, and a custom accent color picker for the active-pane divider / tab — plus full fg/bg + 16-color ANSI overrides for power users
• Unix tools — with Git for Windows installed, ls / cat / grep / rm / sed / awk / … work in any shell

🗂️ Workspace — liney's differentiator

• Tabs (with a × close button and right-click close to the right / left / others / all) + binary splits (drag dividers to resize, drag tabs to reorder), Alt+Arrows to move focus. Crowded tab strips keep the active tab visible; every open tab is searchable from Ctrl+Shift+P.
• Split layouts show an active-pane count/close control. Closing one pane, the whole tab, other panes, or other tabs is also available by name in the command palette, with consolidated running-command warnings.
• Pane zoom (Ctrl+Shift+Z) maximizes the focused pane; Equalize (Ctrl+Shift+E) evens them out — so a deep split layout stays workable
• A folder + Git repository sidebar with per-project icons. Ordinary folders open directly; Git repositories expand into worktrees with branch, ahead/behind and changed-file status.
• Manage projects: the WORKSPACE + adds either kind. Git projects expose New worktree… / Review changes / Refresh Git status; every project offers Open / Open folder in File Explorer / Set icon… / Remove from workspace. Removing an auto-discovered repository stays persisted across rescans.
• A right-side folder tree that follows the focused pane
• SSH hosts and agent sessions, each with its own icon, one click to open
• Layout persistence — tabs + split tree + per-pane cwd restored next launch

⚡ Built-in tooling

• A top-right ☰ menu: settings · scheduled shutdown · command history · updates · a compact support/diagnostics submenu
• Settings… dialog — click-to-configure shell, font & size, theme & accent, scrollback, workspace root, copy-on-select, paste warning, Unix tools; applied live and saved without disturbing hand-edited keys (config.json stays fully editable too)
• Keep awake (Ctrl+Shift+K) — block system/display sleep for 1 / 2 / 3 / 6 / 24 hours or until turned off, with the remaining time in the menu
• Scheduled shutdown — ask Windows to shut down after 1 / 2 / 3 / 6 / 12 / 24 hours, or cancel a pending shutdown from the same menu
• Git: Ctrl+Shift+L/G open git log / git diff in a new tab
• Notifications: a liney notify CLI + OSC 9/777 → Windows tray balloons
• Lifecycle hooks on session start/exit and app exit
• Verified auto-update from GitHub releases: quiet startup checks (optional in Settings) plus manual checks with Ctrl+Shift+U
• Opt-in AI command help: explain the last command block and propose a fix through OpenAI, Codex CLI, or a custom compatible API. Requests redact common secrets, exclude full history, classify command risk, and always require confirmation before execution.
• Reliability tooling: atomic configuration recovery, rotating diagnostics, bounded crash dumps, one-click privacy-safe diagnostic ZIP export, abnormal exit tab/pane/cwd recovery, restartable exited shells, transactional update rollback, signed-install downgrade protection, and reproducible Ghostty pinning
• Command blocks from OSC 133: jump, copy command/output, rerun, bookmark, and inspect exit status/duration from the pane menu
• Searchable local command history: bounded, secret-redacted, and inserts a selected result for review without executing it
• Named workspace snapshots and isolated Agent worktrees with Git/test/review actions; Agent sessions remain available after exit for inspection
• Fuzzy command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) searches actions, shell profiles, workspaces, worktrees, recent projects, SSH hosts and agents. Results expose categories and unavailable-action reasons; use tabs:, pane:, git:, ssh: or agent: to filter.
• Flexible tabs and panes: pin, rename or duplicate tabs; swap panes or move a pane into its own tab, with tab metadata preserved in workspace snapshots

📸 Screenshots

Split panes

Keep multiple shells visible, move focus with the keyboard, and resize the layout without leaving the workspace.

Command palette

Search tabs, panes, Git actions, worktrees, SSH hosts, agents, and settings from one keyboard-first interface.

📦 Install

Download — from the Releases page:

File	Description
liney-setup.exe	Installer — per-user, no admin, Start Menu + uninstall
liney-portable.zip	Portable — unzip and run Liney.exe

Supported systems: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1809 or newer, and Windows 11. The installer and portable zip include their required MSVC runtime DLLs.

Current GitHub release binaries are not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may show an Unknown publisher warning. Download only from this repository's Releases page and verify the included SHA256SUMS.txt when needed.

Build from source — Windows 10 1809+/11, with:

• Visual Studio 2022 Desktop C++ (bundles CMake ≥ 3.20 + Ninja)
• Zig 0.15.2 on PATH — the terminal core is built from Ghostty via Zig

# in the "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022", with zig on PATH
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\build.ps1
.\build-ghostty\Liney.exe

tools\build.ps1 configures + builds and points Zig's cache at the build drive (a Zig 0.15.2 quirk panics when the source and cache are on different drives). The first build fetches Ghostty and compiles libghostty-vt, so it takes a while; ghostty-vt.dll is copied next to the exe automatically.

Prefer raw CMake? cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cmake --build build — but set ZIG_GLOBAL_CACHE_DIR to a folder on the build drive first.

⌨️ Shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+Shift+T / Ctrl+Shift+W	New tab / close current pane
Alt+D / Shift+Alt+D	Split right (left∣right) / split down (top/bottom)
Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Next / previous tab
Ctrl+1…Ctrl+8 / Ctrl+9	Jump to tab N / last tab
Alt+Arrows	Move focus between split panes
Alt+B / Alt+N / Alt+L	Sidebar / new tab / all tabs
Alt+O / Alt+K / Alt+M	Open folder menu / keep-awake menu / main menu
Ctrl+Shift+B / Ctrl+Shift+F	Toggle the left sidebar / right files panel
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy selection / paste
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V	Copy when text is selected (else ^C) / paste
Shift+Insert / Ctrl+Insert	Paste / copy selection
Ctrl+Shift+A	Select all (scrollback included)
Ctrl+F · Enter/F3 · Shift+Enter · Esc	Find · older match (searches scrollback) · newer match · close
Shift+click/drag	Select locally while an app (vim/htop) captures the mouse
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0 · Ctrl+Wheel	Zoom font in / out / reset · zoom
Ctrl+Shift+L / Ctrl+Shift+G	git log / git diff for the current repo
Ctrl+Shift+K	Keep awake (block sleep) on / off
Ctrl+Shift+U	Check for & install updates
Wheel · Shift+PgUp/PgDn/Home/End	Scroll through scrollback
Mouse	Switch tab · focus pane · expand repo · open worktree/SSH/agent · drag to select (auto-scrolls past the edge) · double/triple-click word/line · right-click a pane for copy/paste/find · drag to resize / reorder · right-click a worktree to manage

⚙️ Configuration

The first run writes %USERPROFILE%\.liney\config.json (mirroring macOS liney's ~/.liney/; full sample in config.example.json):

{
  "shell": "cmd.exe",
  "fontFamily": "Cascadia Mono",
  "fontSize": 16,
  "fontLigatures": false,
  "workspaceRoot": "",
  "unixTools": true,
  "copyOnSelect": false,
  "multiLinePasteWarning": true,
  "ai": { "provider": "off", "model": "gpt-5.6-luna", "endpoint": "https://api.openai.com/v1/responses", "includeCwd": false },
  "hooks": { "sessionStart": "", "sessionExit": "", "appExit": "" },
  "sshHosts": ["user@host"],
  "agents": [{ "name": "agent", "command": "claude", "cwd": "" }],
  "projectIcons": { "my-repo": "builtin:rocket" },
  "theme": { "background": "#102840", "foreground": "#e8e8d0", "palette": ["#000000", "..."] }
}

Key	Meaning
shell	Shell for new tabs (powershell.exe / pwsh.exe / wsl.exe; wsl tmux for tmux)
workspaceRoot	Directory scanned for repos; empty disables discovery and shows explicit projects only
projects	Explicit ordinary folders or Git repositories shown in Workspace
workspaceExclusions	Auto-discovered repositories intentionally hidden from Workspace
keybindings	Object mapping action names to chords such as Ctrl+Shift+P; duplicate chords are reported and ignored
unixTools	Append Git's usr\bin to PATH so ls/cat/grep/… work
copyOnSelect	Copy to the clipboard as soon as a selection ends (PuTTY-style)
multiLinePasteWarning	Confirm before pasting text with line breaks (each break runs as Enter)
fontFamily / fontSize	Terminal font; the ☰ → Font… picker, Ctrl +/-/0 and Ctrl+Wheel update and persist them
fontLigatures	Opt-in DirectWrite shaping for common programming operators; off by default for strict cell compatibility
scrollback	History lines retained per session (default 10000)
sshHosts / agents	Entries in the sidebar SSH / AGENTS sections
projectIcons	Per-project built-in sidebar icon IDs; new projects receive one at random
theme	Terminal fg/bg + the 16-color ANSI palette
hooks	Commands run on session start/exit and app exit
ai.provider	off (default), openai, codex, or custom
ai.model	Provider model; the OpenAI default is gpt-5.6-luna
ai.endpoint	HTTPS endpoint used only by the custom provider
ai.includeCwd	Include the active directory in explicit AI requests (off by default)

AI is opt-in. Choose a provider in Settings, then right-click a completed semantic command block and select Explain last command with AI…. OpenAI uses OPENAI_API_KEY; custom compatible APIs use LINEY_AI_API_KEY; Codex CLI uses the user's existing Codex sign-in. Keys are read from the process environment and are never stored by Liney. The request includes only the last command block after redaction, never the full terminal history.

Custom shortcut action names include newTab, splitRight, splitDown, toggleSidebar, toggleFiles, zoomPane, equalize, find, settings, workspaceSnapshots, checkUpdates, keepAwake, commandPalette, newWindow, newAdminWindow, searchHistory, exportDiagnostics, renameTab, pinTab, duplicateTab, swapPane, movePane, detachPane, closePane, closeTab, closeOtherPanes, and closeOtherTabs.

The window layout is saved to %USERPROFILE%\.liney\layout.json and restored on the next launch.

🔔 liney CLI & notifications

A companion CLI Liney.exe ships with the app; run it in a pane to drive the terminal over OSC (mirrors macOS liney's liney notify):

liney notify <body>            # Windows tray notification
liney notify <title> <body>
liney title  <text>            # set the tab/window title
liney agent-status <state>     # running | waiting | needs-input | done | failed

Put Liney.exe on PATH and liney notify "done" pings you when a long task finishes. The terminal also parses OSC 0/2 (title), 7 (cwd), 9 and 777;notify (notifications). Agent adapters can emit status through the companion command so the workspace sidebar reports meaningful task state without binding Liney to a particular AI provider.

Inline images support the bounded iTerm2 OSC 1337;File=... subset. Requests must set inline=1; bare numeric width and height are interpreted as terminal cells. PNG, JPEG and GIF are accepted up to 3 MiB decoded, dimensions are capped at 200×200 cells, and each session retains at most 16 images.

🏗️ Architecture

keyboard/mouse → Window (workspace orchestration) → routes to the focused pane
                 ↑ composes sidebar · tab strip · split tree · files panel · toolbar
TerminalSession = Terminal + ConPty + Grid
   ConPty      — Windows pseudoconsole (spawn shell, read/write, resize)
   Terminal    — wraps libghostty-vt (Ghostty's VT engine): PTY bytes → render
                 snapshot → Grid; selection / find / mouse encoding via its C API
   D2DRenderer — Direct2D/DirectWrite draws chrome and color fonts; ordinary
                 glyphs rasterize once into a D3D11 atlas and draw in one
                 tinted shader batch per frame; opt-in operator runs use
                 DirectWrite ligature shaping

Source map in src/. Design / research notes: RESEARCH.md, ALT_PLAN_SELFBUILT.md, TERMINAL_LANDSCAPE.md; rendering plan: RENDERING.md. Quality gates and reproducible local benchmark evidence live in docs/QUALITY_GATES.md and docs/BENCHMARKS.md.

🗺️ Roadmap

Done & remaining items (with a macOS-liney comparison) live in ROADMAP.md; per-release changes in CHANGELOG.md. Still pending: SFTP remote file tree and native tmux control-mode. (Mouse reporting needs a ConPTY that passes mouse-mode requests through — Windows 11 / recent Windows 10.)

🤝 Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the full setup. The one thing to get right: the build needs Zig 0.15.2 (not 0.16.x) to compile the libghostty-vt core. The codebase is plain C++20 + Win32 + Direct2D, split into small, cohesive files (see src/); please match the surrounding style.

🙏 Acknowledgements

• liney by @everettjf — the macOS original this follows, and the source of the app icon.
• Ghostty — provides libghostty-vt, liney-win's terminal core (built from Ghostty via Zig).

📄 License

Apache-2.0 — same as liney.