Wortel: a native macOS terminal for coding agents

Wortel is a fully native macOS terminal emulator built on Ghostty’s engine. It replaces tabs and splits with a sidebar of named, persistent sessions, gives each coding agent its own git worktree so several can work one repository at once, keeps those shells running after you quit the app, and ships with no configuration to maintain. A git panel, a file tree and agent activity detection are built in.

Yes. Wortel is a free download for macOS 14 or later, and updates itself through Sparkle.

Wortel is Dutch for root: the root of a plant, and the root shell you work in.

macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Wortel is a signed and notarized native application; the download is roughly 17 MB.

Wortel runs Ghostty’s engine, so terminal behaviour, throughput and latency are the same. The difference is the app around it: Ghostty gives you tabs, splits and a large configuration file, while Wortel gives you one window, a sidebar of named sessions that persist across restarts, a git worktree per session, shells that keep running after the app quits, a built-in git and files inspector, coding-agent activity detection, and no configuration at all.

No, and that is intentional. One window holds a sidebar of named sessions; switching between them is instant, so the arranging a tab bar or a split layout exists to support is not needed. Requests for tabs, splits and the command palette are declined by the app rather than partially implemented.

Yes. Shells run under a small keeper process outside the app rather than as its children, so quitting Wortel, or Wortel crashing, does not stop them. An agent that was working when you quit is still working when you launch again, and the session reattaches to the shell it already had, with the output from while you were gone. This is on by default and there is nothing to switch on.

Your shell configuration (.zshrc, .bashrc, fish config) is yours and runs normally. It is only Wortel’s own terminal configuration that is fixed and bundled; the user-level Ghostty config file is deliberately not loaded.

Those are multiplexers: a background server plus a client that runs inside whatever terminal you already supply. Wortel is the terminal, and it holds sessions the same way, under a process outside the app, so quitting Wortel does not stop them. What it adds is the part a multiplexer has no window for: a git panel with diffs, history and a branch graph, a project file tree, preview windows, and a worktree per session, all beside the shell rather than in another tool.

Yes. They run as ordinary shell commands in any session, with no per-agent setup and no changes to their configuration files. Beyond that, Wortel marks in the sidebar which agents are working and which are waiting, notifies you when a background agent goes quiet, jumps to the next waiting session with ⌘⌥], gives each one its own worktree so they can share a repository, keeps them running when the app is closed, and resumes agents that were still running when you last quit.

Only font size, which is adjustable per session with ⌘+ and ⌘−. Everything else is fixed: the whole configuration is a read-only file inside the app bundle, and your ~/.config/ghostty is never read. Zero configuration is the design goal, not a missing feature.

Yes, and that is what git worktrees are for here. Opening a session on a branch checks that branch out in its own directory with its own files, sharing the repository’s history, objects and remotes, so it costs a directory rather than a clone. Each agent then edits its own files on its own branch, nothing changes the ground under a running agent, and each session’s git panel shows only that worktree’s work. A branch that already has a worktree opens the one it has, a new one forks from the repository’s default branch rather than from whichever worktree you opened it in, and the sidebar marks which rows are worktrees.

Those are agent manager apps: a window holding worktrees, diffs and a review queue, with a terminal as a detail inside it. Wortel is the terminal, and the worktrees and diffs are in it. The practical difference is what happens when you quit. Wortel’s shells run under a separate process, so an agent mid-task keeps working whether or not the app is open, and everything you type is a real terminal on Ghostty’s engine rather than a box in a form.

By watching what the session draws. A screen that keeps changing means the agent is still working; a screen that has held still past a threshold means it is waiting on you. Precise signals (OSC 9;4 progress, OSC 133 command marks, a title spinner) are used where an agent emits them, but none are required, so the rule covers Claude Code, Codex, Aider and agents that do not exist yet. Nothing is written into any agent’s configuration to make this work, and detection only runs on sessions you are not currently looking at.

Yes. A wortel command ships inside the app bundle and is on the PATH of every session, with no installer and no admin prompt. It speaks to the running app over a socket: wortel open opens a preview window for a file, wortel new --branch opens a session in its own worktree, wortel rename renames the session it was run in, and wortel notify raises attention on it. That is how Wortel avoids shipping a separate integration per agent: anything that can run a command can drive it, including your own hooks and scripts.

Wortel has no settings UI, no plugin system, no AI chat box, no tabs and no splits. What it has instead is built around running coding agents: named shells that survive a restart and switch in one frame, a git worktree per session so several agents can work one repository at once, shells that keep running after you quit the app, a git and files inspector beside the terminal, and detection of which background agent has stopped and is waiting on you.