Why Termit?
GNOME Terminal and Console are great, but when you keep ten shells open — a few of them running Claude Code — you quickly run out of horizontal tab space, lose track of which tab is doing what, and end up pasting reminders into random text files. Termit fixes exactly those pains:
- Vertical tabs. Tabs live in a sidebar on the left or right, with the folder, a colour label and the program currently running in each one.
- Notes per tab. Every tab has its own note. Notes are saved automatically, survive restarts, and are archived (not lost) when the tab closes.
- Awareness. The sidebar shows the running process and how long it has been running, highlights tabs with new output, and raises a desktop notification when a background tab rings the bell — for example when Claude Code waits for your input.
Features
Tabs
- Vertical tab sidebar, positioned left or right, collapsible with Ctrl+Shift+B.
- Each tab shows its title, working directory and the foreground process with an elapsed-time counter (for example
claude · 12m).
- Colour labels (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) to group tabs visually.
- Rename tabs (F2), reorder them with drag-and-drop or Ctrl+Shift+Page Up/Down, jump with Alt+1…9.
- Activity dot for tabs with new output; warning dot for tabs that rang the bell.
- Find a tab with Ctrl+Shift+L: the sidebar filters by title, folder, running process and even the text of the tab's note; ↑/↓ and Enter jump to it.
- New tabs open in the current tab's folder. Duplicate a tab with Ctrl+Shift+D.
- Confirmation before closing a tab (on by default; can be limited to tabs that still run a program) and before closing a window with running programs.
- Session restore: tabs, folders, titles, colours and notes come back on the next start.
Split panes
- Split the current pane to the right (Ctrl+Alt+R) or downwards (Ctrl+Alt+D); splits nest as deep as you like and the new pane opens in the folder of the pane you split.
- Move between panes with Alt+arrow keys, close one with Ctrl+Alt+W or by exiting its shell; the active pane has a thin accent outline.
- The sidebar shows the pane count and the program running in any pane of the tab; the tab's note is shared by all its panes.
- Pane layouts, including the split ratios and folders, are restored with the session.
Notes
- A notes pane to the right of or below the terminal (Ctrl+Shift+N), with a "This Tab" note and a "Global" scratchpad.
- Autosave; Esc returns the focus to the terminal, Ctrl+Shift+E focuses the editor.
- When a tab closes, its note is kept in the Notes Archive (configurable: keep, delete or ask). Archived notes can be reopened in a new tab in the same folder, copied, or deleted.
- When you open a tab in a folder that has an archived note, a banner offers to restore it.
- Insert timestamps, copy or export a note as Markdown.
Terminal
- Real terminal emulation through VTE — the same library GNOME Terminal uses.
- Light and dark mode following the system preference, or forced in Preferences. Seven colour palettes (GNOME, Tango, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, Catppuccin Mocha, Solarized).
- Ctrl+click opens URLs, e-mail addresses and file paths (
src/app.py:42 style paths are resolved relative to the shell's folder). OSC 8 hyperlinks are supported.
- Search with regular expressions and case sensitivity (Ctrl+Shift+F).
- Multi-line paste protection — skipped automatically while a program such as Claude Code is in the foreground, so pasting long prompts stays frictionless.
- Snippets menu (Ctrl+Shift+S) for commands you type all day; ships with
claude, claude --continue, claude --resume and a few git commands. Edit them in Preferences.
- Zoom, scrollback, cursor shape, copy-on-select, login shell or custom command, and the usual GNOME Terminal options.
- Command line:
termit --working-directory DIR, termit --new-tab, termit -- htop.
Working with Claude Code
- Tell Claude Code to ring the terminal bell when it needs you:
claude config set --global preferredNotifChannel terminal_bell. Termit turns the bell into a sidebar indicator and a desktop notification when the tab is in the background.
- Each tab exports
TERMIT_SESSION_ID, so scripts and hooks can tell tabs apart.
- Keep the plan, open questions and follow-ups for each session in the tab's note; it stays with the tab, is archived when the tab closes and comes back when you reopen the folder.
Installation
Termit is a Python application and needs GTK 4, libadwaita 1.4+ and VTE 0.72+ (GTK 4 build) with GObject introspection data.
Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 gir1.2-vte-3.91
Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte291-gtk4
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte4
Then clone and install for your user:
git clone https://github.com/aripdcom/termit.git
cd termit
make install # installs to ~/.local
Or run it straight from the checkout:
python3 -m termit # or ./bin/termit
For a system-wide install use sudo make install PREFIX=/usr/local; make uninstall removes everything again.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|
| Ctrl+Shift+T / W | New tab / close tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+D | Duplicate tab in the same folder |
| Ctrl+Page Up / Page Down | Previous / next tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+Page Up / Page Down | Move tab up / down |
| Alt+1 … 9 | Switch to tab 1–9 |
| F2 | Rename tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+L | Find a tab (filters the sidebar) |
| Ctrl+Alt+R / D | Split the pane to the right / downwards |
| Ctrl+Alt+W | Close the pane |
| Alt+← ↑ → ↓ | Move focus between panes |
| Ctrl+Shift+B | Show or hide the tab sidebar |
| Ctrl+Shift+N | Show or hide notes |
| Ctrl+Shift+E | Focus the note editor (Esc goes back) |
| Ctrl+Shift+S | Snippets |
| Ctrl+Shift+C / V | Copy / paste |
| Ctrl+Shift+F | Find (Ctrl+Shift+G / H next / previous) |
| Ctrl+Shift+K | Clear scrollback |
| Ctrl++ / - / 0 | Zoom in / out / reset |
| Ctrl+Shift+P | Preferences |
| Ctrl+? | Keyboard shortcuts |
| F11 | Fullscreen |
| Ctrl+Shift+Q | Quit |
Where Termit stores things
| Path | Content |
|---|
~/.config/termit/config.json | Preferences and snippets |
~/.local/share/termit/notes/<id>.md | One Markdown file per tab note |
~/.local/share/termit/notes/index.json | Note titles, folders and archive state |
~/.local/share/termit/global-notes.md | The global scratchpad |
~/.local/share/termit/session.json | Open tabs for session restore |
Notes are plain Markdown, so you can grep, back up or version them like any other files.
Language
The interface is in English and switches to Turkish automatically when the system locale is Turkish. Translations live in termit/translations_tr.py; contributions for other languages are welcome.
Roadmap ideas
- Tab groups / workspaces in the sidebar
- Broadcasting input to several tabs
- Flatpak packaging
Contributing
Bug reports, feature requests and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to set up a development environment and the project conventions.
License
Termit is released under the MIT License.
