CRT's a Ridiculous Terminal

A GPU-accelerated terminal that's actually fun to look at.

"This is cool!"

— Mat (6 years old)

Why?

I really like Hyper.js - being able to use CSS to style a terminal just made it fun. But it hasn't been maintained and has been regressing in performance. So like anyone who hasn't tried to do the thing before, I decided "How hard could it be?"

This is the result. It's not as fast as rio or alacritty, but it's got CSS theming, visual effects, and my 6-year-old thinks it's cool. What more could you want?

What makes it fun

• CSS Theming - Style your terminal like a website. Hot-reload on save.
• Visual Effects - CRT scanlines, matrix rain, particle systems, animated sprites
• 16 Built-in Themes - Synthwave, Matrix, Nyan Cat, Fallout Pip-Boy, and more
• GPU Rendering - Smooth 60fps via wgpu/vello

Install

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colliery-io/crt/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Windows support coming Soon™

Quick Start

1. Launch CRT from Applications (macOS) or run crt (Linux)
2. Edit ~/.config/crt/config.toml to try different themes:

   [theme]
   name = "matrix"  # or "nyancat", "synthwave", "minimal", etc.

3. Save and press Cmd+N for a new window with your theme

Themes

CRT includes 16 built-in themes. See the Theme Gallery for screenshots.

Theme	Description
alien	Amber phosphor CRT (Weyland-Yutani MU/TH/UR 6000)
dracula	Classic Dracula color scheme
matrix	Green falling code with CRT effect
minimal	Clean, pure black background
nyancat	Bouncing Nyan Cat with stars and sparkles
particles	Floating particle effect
rain	Animated rain drops
robco	Fallout Pip-Boy green phosphor CRT
shape	Floating geometric shapes
solarized	Solarized Dark color scheme
starfield	Twinkling stars background
stress	All effects at once (for testing)
synthwave	80s neon with perspective grid
tron	Cyan grid aesthetic
vaporwave	Pink and cyan aesthetic with perspective grid
wh40k	Warhammer 40K Adeptus Mechanicus with servo skull

Custom Themes

Create your own at ~/.config/crt/themes/mytheme.css and set name = "mytheme" in config.

• How to Create a Custom Theme
• CSS Properties Reference
• Full Theming Guide

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Reference

Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows & Tabs

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+N	New window
Cmd+T	New tab
Cmd+W	Close tab
Cmd+Shift+W	Close window
Cmd+Shift+R	Rename window
Cmd+1-9	Switch to tab 1-9
Cmd+Shift+[	Previous tab
Cmd+Shift+]	Next tab
Double-click tab	Rename tab

Navigation

Shortcut	Action
Shift+Page Up	Scroll up through history
Shift+Page Down	Scroll down through history
Shift+Home	Jump to top of scrollback
Shift+End	Jump to bottom
Cmd+Click	Open URL under cursor

Search & Font

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+F	Open search
Enter	Find next match
Escape	Close search
Cmd+=	Increase font size
Cmd+-	Decrease font size
Cmd+0	Reset font size

Other

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+C	Copy selection
Cmd+V	Paste
Cmd+A	Select all
Cmd+K	Clear scrollback
Cmd+Option+P	Toggle profiling
Ctrl+Cmd+F	Toggle fullscreen

Building from Source

Requires Rust 2024 edition:

git clone https://github.com/colliery-io/crt.git
cd crt
cargo build --release

Configuration

Config lives at ~/.config/crt/config.toml. Themes at ~/.config/crt/themes/.

Accessibility

• Focus indicators: Visual focus rings on active elements
• Keyboard navigation: Full keyboard control for tabs, menus, search
• Calm themes: Use minimal or dracula if effects are distracting

Known limitation: No screen reader support yet.

Troubleshooting

Fonts look wrong or missing characters

CRT bundles MesloLGS NF (a Nerd Font) at ~/.config/crt/fonts/. If you see boxes, check the font family setting in config.

Theme not loading

• Check the theme file exists at ~/.config/crt/themes/{name}.css
• Check terminal output for CSS parsing errors
• Background images and sprites need Cmd+N to reload

Performance issues

Themes with multiple effects use more resources. Try minimal or dracula for lightweight options.

Reactive themes not working

See the Troubleshooting Guide for shell integration setup.

Reporting Issues

Enable profiling with Cmd+Option+P, reproduce the issue, then open an issue with the profile log from ~/.config/crt/.

Contributing

Open a PR

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0