README
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hauntty
Terminal session persistence. Run sessions that survive disconnects, reattach later.
Why does this exist
Wanted to understand PTY internals without leaving the comfort of Go, so I prompted the shit out of Claude to help me. You're probably better off with tmux, zellij, shpool, or zmx.
How it works
A Go daemon manages sessions. Each session runs a shell in a PTY and tracks terminal state using libghostty/ghostty-vt compiled to WASM. When you reattach, it reconstructs the screen from that state.
If Ghostty is installed, hauntty injects its shell integration scripts.
The client (ht) talks to the daemon over a Unix socket.
Usage
ht attach work # attach to session (creates if needed)
ht new work npm run dev # create/start without attaching
ht list # list sessions
ht kill work # kill a session
# detach with ctrl+;
Daemon starts on first attach/new. Sessions persist until killed or the shell exits.
Commands
attach (a) Attach to a session, create if needed
new Create/start a session without attaching
list (ls) List sessions
kill Kill a session
send Send input to a session without attaching
dump Dump session screen contents
detach Detach from current session
wait Wait for output to match a pattern
status (st) Show daemon and session status
prune Delete dead session state files
init Create default config file
config Print current configuration
daemon Start daemon in foreground
Run ht <command> --help for details.
Install
go install code.selman.me/hauntty/cmd/ht@latest
Building
go build -o ht ./cmd/ht
Config
~/.config/hauntty/config.toml - run ht init to create it.
Environment
Forwarded from client to session:
TERM,SHELL(always)COLORTERM,GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR,GHOSTTY_BIN_DIR(default config)
Configure forward_env in config to change. Pass --env KEY for one-off.
Set by hauntty:
HAUNTTY_SESSION- session name, set inside sessionsHAUNTTY_SOCKET- socket path override for client commands
Documentation
Source Files
Directories