Kitty

• Kitty is a fast, GPU-based terminal emulator for macOS and Linux
  • Not to be confused with the ProductHunt "Golden Kitty" awards — this is Person/Kovid Goyal's terminal, not a product category
  • Created by Person/Kovid Goyal, who also created Calibre

  • Platform

    • macOS and Linux — no Windows support

  • Language

    • Written primarily in Python and C
    • C handles the rendering-critical path; Python handles configuration and extension

  • Image Protocol

    • Invented the Kitty/Graphics/Protocol, the most capable terminal image protocol
    • Supports full RGBA images, animations, and precise placement
    • Widely adopted by other terminals (WezTerm, Alacritty, Ghostty)
    • Relevant for tools like yazi that display inline images

  • Nix

    • Available in nixpkgs as pkgs.kitty
    • Idiomatic home-manager module: programs.kitty
      • nix

        programs.kitty = {
          enable = true;
          font.name = "JetBrains Mono";
          theme = "Catppuccin-Mocha";
          settings = {
            window_padding_width = 8;
          };
        };

    • font.name uses JetBrains/Font/Mono Nerd.
    • theme uses Catppuccin; see Catppuccin for flavors and the rest of the stack.

  • Notable Features

    • GPU rendering via OpenGL/Metal
    • Built-in tabs and window splits ("windows" in Kitty terminology)
    • "Kittens" — small terminal programs built on Kitty's Python API
    • SSH kitten for seamless remote sessions with full local config
    • Extensible via Python