Monstar is a terminal emulator for Linux and Wayland.

Features

• Wayland windows, fractional scaling, text input (IME), clipboard, primary selection, activation, and system bell support.
• Desktop notifications and launcher progress over D-Bus.
• Link and file opening through XDG desktop portals.
• Optional systemd scopes for shell processes.
• Kitty graphics, OSC 8 hyperlinks, URI detection, synchronized output, and terminal color support.
• Scrollback search while terminal output continues.
• Fontconfig fonts, bundled color schemes, desktop light/dark preference, padding, and background opacity settings.
• Touchpad scrolling, separate precision and discrete wheel settings, rectangular selection, and link opening.
• Configuration reloads for most appearance and interaction settings.

Performance

Reference distributions recorded on an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V. Lower is better. Results vary by workload.

Startup

Launch-and-exit time over 100 fresh runs of true:

Keystroke latency

Key event to echoed-frame commit over 200 injected keys:

PTY throughput

Sample-time distributions from eight vtebench workloads:

vtebench measures producer blocking and PTY read throughput, not frame presentation or input latency.

Benchmark methodology

• Date: July 15, 2026.
• Session: hardware-accelerated, headless Sway 1.12 at 2560×1440.
• Renderer: GLES2 on the Intel GPU through /dev/dri/renderD128.
• Process setup: empty configuration and a fresh process for each terminal.
• Startup: measured with hyperfine 1.20.0 after 10 warmups. Commands were monstar -e true, foot true, ghostty -e true, kitty true, and alacritty -e true. The result covers the complete process lifetime, not time to the first visible frame.
• Keystroke latency: measured in 120×40 terminals under WAYLAND_DEBUG=client. The test injected 200 keys with wtype at intervals from 50 to 100 ms. A marked 20 ms raw-PTY echo delay was subtracted from each sample to separate output commits from toolkit-only redraws. The result includes client key handling, the PTY round trip, rendering, and buffer commit. It excludes physical input, compositor presentation, and display latency.
• PTY throughput: measured with the default vtebench suite at 120×40 cells. The test used the standard 1 MiB minimum sample size and 10-second workload limit. The result covers PTY reads, not frame rate, display latency, or final-frame presentation.
• Versions: Monstar 0.1.0 (5b350e2, ReleaseFast), foot 1.27.0, Ghostty 1.3.2 tip (c5a21ed), kitty 0.47.4, and Alacritty 0.17.0.

Linux integration

• XDG desktop portals open links, local files, and directories. Portal settings provide the desktop light/dark preference. Link opening uses Wayland activation tokens.
• D-Bus session services provide desktop notifications and launcher progress. Notification actions can activate the terminal window.
• Monstar launches new windows opened with Ctrl+Shift+N through the systemd user manager. Optional transient scopes place each shell process tree in a separate scope.
• Wayland protocols provide fractional scaling, text-input-v3 IME, cursor shapes, clipboard and primary selection, server-side decorations, named app icons, activation, system bell, and translucent background blur support.

Enable a transient systemd scope for each newly spawned shell with:

linux-cgroup = always

If the session bus or systemd scope is unavailable, Monstar leaves the shell in its inherited cgroup. Link opening falls back to xdg-open when the portal is unavailable. Monstar disables optional Wayland protocols when the compositor does not support them.

Install

Install the current development version on Arch Linux from the monstar-git AUR package:

yay -S monstar-git

Build and install Monstar from source into ~/.local:

zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast install --prefix "$HOME/.local"

The command installs the executable, desktop entry, app icon, manual pages, and bundled themes. Add $HOME/.local/bin to PATH, then launch Monstar:

monstar

See Development for build requirements.

Usage

Run Monstar without arguments to start $SHELL. Monstar falls back to /bin/sh when SHELL is unset. Pass -e to run a command directly:

monstar -e fish --login

Pass -- to run a shell expression:

monstar -- 'git log --oneline | less'

Set the working directory, initial size, title, app ID, font, and one-off configuration overrides with command-line options:

monstar --working-directory ~/src \
  --title scratch \
  --window-size-chars 100x32 \
  --font Iosevka \
  -o background-opacity=0.95

Run monstar --help, man monstar, or man 5 monstar for the complete command and configuration reference.

Configuration

Write configuration to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/monstar/config. Use ~/.config/monstar/config when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset. Start with:

font-family = Iosevka
font-size = 12.5
theme = light:Rose Pine Dawn,dark:Rose Pine
background-opacity = 0.95
window-padding-x = 8
window-padding-y = 6
mouse-scroll-multiplier = precision:1,discrete:3

By default, background-opacity affects only the default terminal background and padding. Set background-opacity-cells = true to apply it to explicit cell background colors too. Monstar requests compositor-provided blur whenever the background is translucent; set background-blur = false to keep it clear.

Leave theme unset to follow the desktop light/dark preference. Load bundled iTerm2 color schemes by name. Put custom themes in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/monstar/themes or ~/.config/monstar/themes.

Set the default command for new windows. Commands run through /bin/sh -c unless prefixed with direct::

command = fish --login
# command = direct:fish --no-config

Press Ctrl+Shift+, or send SIGUSR1 to reload the configuration:

pkill -USR1 monstar

Visual and interaction settings apply immediately. Process and storage settings apply to new windows.

Keybindings

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy / paste
Ctrl+Shift+F	Search scrollback
Ctrl+Shift+N	Open a new window in the current directory
Ctrl+Shift+,	Reload configuration
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+= / Ctrl+-	Adjust the font size
Ctrl+0	Reset the font size
Ctrl + left click	Open a hyperlink or detected URI
Ctrl + drag	Make a rectangular selection

Scrollback search updates as you type. Press Ctrl+N and Ctrl+P to move between matches. Press Enter to copy a match to the primary selection. Press Escape to restore the previous viewport.

Hold Shift while dragging to select text after an application captures the mouse. Hold Ctrl+Shift instead of Ctrl to open a link in this state. Middle-click to paste the primary selection.

Development

Building requires Zig 0.16, the Wayland 1.25 core schema, wayland-protocols 1.49, and development libraries for Wayland, Fontconfig, FreeType, HarfBuzz, xkbcommon, and D-Bus. Monstar negotiates protocol versions at runtime to support older compositors.

zig build
zig build test
zig build fmt