Esta página se muestra en inglés. Una traducción al español está en curso.

SkillsApr 14, 2026·3 min de lectura

kitty — The Fast, Feature-Rich Terminal with GPU Rendering and Image Protocol

kitty is a feature-rich GPU-accelerated terminal with tabs, splits, SSH integration, and its own terminal graphics protocol used by tools like icat and MPV. It combines the speed of Alacritty with the features of iTerm2.

AI Open Source · Community

Listo para agents

Instalación con revisión previa

Este activo requiere revisión. El prompt copiado pide dry-run, muestra escrituras y continúa solo tras confirmación.

Needs Confirmation · 64/100Política: confirmar

Superficie agent

Cualquier agent MCP/CLI

Tipo

Skill

Instalación

Single

Confianza

Confianza: Established

Entrada

step-1.md

Comando con revisión previa

npx -y tokrepo@latest install a5f74c04-380a-11f1-9bc6-00163e2b0d79 --target codex

Primero dry-run, confirma las escrituras y luego ejecuta este comando.

TL;DR

kitty is a fast, GPU-rendered terminal with tabs, splits, and a native image protocol.

§01

What it is

kitty is a feature-rich, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator. It uses OpenGL for rendering, which offloads text drawing to the GPU and keeps CPU usage low even with large scrollback buffers. kitty supports tabs, splits, remote control via IPC, and SSH integration with automatic shell setup on remote hosts.

What sets kitty apart is its terminal graphics protocol. Unlike iTerm2's proprietary inline images, kitty's protocol is an open standard adopted by other terminals and tools like ranger, MPV, and neovim image plugins.

§02

How it saves time or tokens

kitty replaces multiple tools. Its built-in icat kitten displays images directly in the terminal without external viewers. The ssh kitten copies your shell config to remote hosts automatically. Tab and split management is built in, eliminating the need for tmux in many workflows.

For AI-assisted workflows, kitty's scriptable remote control means agents can open splits, send commands, and read output programmatically via kitty @ commands.

§03

How to use

Install kitty: curl -L https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin
Configure in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf for fonts, colors, and key bindings
Use ctrl+shift+enter to open a new split, ctrl+shift+t for a new tab
Display images inline: kitty +kitten icat image.png

§04

Example

# kitty.conf snippet
font_family      JetBrains Mono
font_size        14.0
enable_audio_bell no

# Tab bar style
tab_bar_style powerline
tab_powerline_style slanted

# Open new split with current directory
map ctrl+shift+enter new_window_with_cwd

# Remote control (enable in config)
allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:/tmp/kitty_socket

Then from another process:

kitty @ --to unix:/tmp/kitty_socket send-text 'echo hello\n'

§05

Related on TokRepo

Automation tools -- Automate terminal workflows
Coding tools -- Developer environment and editor tools

§06

Common pitfalls

kitty does not support macOS Terminal.app features like Secure Keyboard Entry; use the native kitty.app bundle instead
The graphics protocol requires applications to explicitly support it; not all TUI tools render images through kitty
SSH kitten requires Python 3 on the remote host; headless servers without Python need manual shell setup

Preguntas frecuentes

How does kitty compare to Alacritty?+

Both use GPU rendering for speed. kitty adds built-in tabs, splits, an image protocol, scriptable remote control, and SSH integration. Alacritty is deliberately minimal and relies on tmux or a tiling window manager for those features.

Does kitty work on Linux and macOS?+

Yes. kitty runs on Linux (X11 and Wayland) and macOS. It does not support Windows natively. On macOS, it ships as a standalone .app bundle with full Retina display support.

What is the kitty graphics protocol?+

It is an open terminal protocol for displaying images, animations, and video frames inline in the terminal. Unlike sixel or iTerm2 inline images, kitty's protocol supports transparency, animation, and efficient memory-mapped transfers.

Can I use kitty with tmux?+

You can, but kitty's built-in tabs and splits often make tmux unnecessary. If you use tmux, note that tmux does not pass through the kitty graphics protocol, so inline images will not display inside tmux sessions.

How do I customize key bindings in kitty?+

Add map directives in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf. For example, 'map ctrl+shift+n new_os_window' opens a new window. kitty supports hundreds of actions including launching programs, sending text, and controlling layout.

Referencias (3)

kitty GitHub— kitty is a GPU-accelerated terminal emulator with an image protocol
kitty Docs— kitty graphics protocol specification
kitty Docs— SSH kitten for automatic remote shell integration

Relacionados en TokRepo

Automation tools Coding tools Featured workflows

Discusión

Inicia sesión para unirte a la discusión.

Aún no hay comentarios. Sé el primero en compartir tus ideas.

Activos relacionados

iTerm2 — Feature-Rich Terminal Emulator for macOS

A GPL-licensed replacement for the macOS Terminal app that adds split panes, search, autocomplete, and extensive customization to your command-line workflow.

Skills

AI Open Source

Yazi — Blazing Fast Terminal File Manager in Rust

Yazi is a blazing fast terminal file manager written in Rust, based on async I/O. Preview images and videos in terminal, fuzzy search, batch operations, plugin system, and seamless integration with tools like fzf, zoxide, and rg.

Skills

AI Open Source

imgproxy — Fast Secure Image Processing Server in Go

Resize, crop, and convert images on-the-fly with imgproxy. A blazing-fast Go server powered by libvips for production-grade image transformation at scale.

Skills

AI Open Source

Fyrox — Feature-Rich 2D and 3D Game Engine in Rust

A general-purpose game engine written in Rust with a built-in scene editor, UI framework, and PBR rendering pipeline for building desktop and web games.

Skills

AI Open Source