DEETTY

DEETTY is a native terminal workspace focused first on Linux desktops: KDE Plasma, Noctalia-compatible Wayland compositors, Wayland, and X11. An experimental native Windows host now provides a first Win32/ConPTY terminal tranche using the same Zig VT core. DEETTY is built for the workflow that usually turns into many heavy VS Code/MrCode/Electron windows: agent sessions, shells, logs, quick edits, and project navigation.

NoctEd is the companion standalone editor. It is intentionally smaller than a full IDE: open a project, edit files, search, save safely, and get back to the terminal.

DEETTY and NoctEd use Zig with native GTK/Win32 bindings. The runtime does not use Electron, Node.js, Bun, React, a browser UI runtime, telemetry, update pings, crash uploaders, or remote feature flags.

Status

Current public-readiness status: early source alpha; public announcement not yet approved.

A separate experimental Windows terminal alpha is now available for testing; it is not yet Windows feature parity or physically qualified.

The local 0.1.0 behavior scope has substantial proof coverage on the author's Linux/KDE-style environment, but the project is not yet a broad public release. The next goal is to make DEETTY/NoctEd reliable enough for daily use while keeping the public claims small and honest.

The NCT-112 hidden/visible stability harness passes its short Debug/ReleaseSafe Wayland/X11 shakedown. The default authenticated 24-hour Wayland plus 24-hour X11 run still needs elapsed time and is not claimed complete.

Supported first:

• Linux desktop
• KDE Plasma Wayland/X11
• Noctalia-compatible Wayland sessions
• native terminal workspace use
• standalone NoctEd quick editing

Experimental:

• x86_64 Windows 10 1809+/Windows 11 Win32/ConPTY terminal workspace with bounded native tabs and recursive splits

Not claimed yet:

• Windows feature parity or physically qualified Windows terminal/editor and installer daily-driver support
• macOS support
• VS Code/Zed/Sublime parity
• universal terminal compatibility
• multi-day production stability
• authenticated agent compatibility across every coding CLI
• signed/public packages

See Known limitations, the no-surprise network check, the code map, the Konsole resilience review, the terminal peer research, the agent fairness qualification, the mapped presentation qualification, the full-stack mapped qualification, the hidden/visible stability qualification, the launcher agent qualification, the installed tmux/Zellij continuity qualification, the NoctEd native endurance qualification, and the detailed historical status in Technical status. The locked Linux/Windows parity matrix and its Simplified Chinese companion separate implemented code from physical-host and cross-machine acceptance. The open NoctEd KOF4J compatibility DoD requires 100% language, linter, and required LSP coverage on a pinned project fixture.

Local-agent resource research

The small-model teams and memory-tier research and retained cache/host evidence apply to terminals hosting coding agents: share qualified serving weights rather than launching a model copy per tab, but keep project histories and permissions separate. A task abort must not terminate an unrelated shared inference server. Preserve terminal responsiveness and existing fairness/output bounds while serializing resource-heavy model or artifact work through its owning runtime. The observed zram/zswap setup consumes physical RAM; it is not extra model capacity. Page-cache hints do not prove endpoint readiness, and terminal/PTY qualification does not prove model task quality. These are integration guidelines, not a new DEETTY inference engine, agent scheduler or change to default behavior.

Build and run

Linux requirements:

• Zig 0.17.x (the build intentionally rejects other minor versions)
• libepoxy development files discoverable through pkg-config for optional OpenGL presentation
• GtkSourceView 4 development files discoverable through pkg-config
• system gtk-layer-shell at runtime for Wayland dropdown placement; dependency bundles and dogfood installs copy the host package's library into a launcher-owned private runtime after provenance/license checks
• VTE 2.91 development files only for zig build check, smoke binaries, or the optional legacy/fallback binary; not for the production build

Install the distribution prerequisites, then run from the repository root in your desktop session:

zig build -j1
./zig-out/bin/deetty --native-grid-windowed

This builds both production applications without running the maintainer matrix. Launch the editor with ./zig-out/bin/nocted --open README.md. No OVERZEER install, agent CLI account, packaging receipt, or physical qualification is needed. For the dropdown instead, use zig build run. Use deetty --help or nocted --help for command-line options. To work with a saved editor project, use File > New Project or open an existing .npr file; --project expects a project file, not a directory.

Useful launch variants:

zig build run -- --native-grid-windowed
zig build run -- --native-grid-zen
zig build run -- --native-grid-two-pane
zig build run-nocted -- --open src/nocted/main.zig

Optional legacy/fallback build:

zig build vte-fallback
./zig-out/bin/deetty-vte --native-host

Native x86_64 Windows cross-build (no GTK dependency):

zig build -Dtarget=x86_64-windows-gnu -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
./scripts/package_windows.sh dist/deetty-windows-x86_64-alpha.zip

See Windows alpha for the current feature and proof boundary, and the native parity matrix.

Install/package locally

Local install:

zig build -j1 -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe --prefix "$HOME/.local"

Reproducible install-tree tarball:

./scripts/package_tarball.sh /tmp/deetty-local.tar.gz

Same-architecture dependency bundle:

./scripts/package_bundle.sh /tmp/deetty-linux-bundle.tar.gz

ZTASH dogfood packages for the configured OVERZEER receivers:

./scripts/package_ztash.sh
./scripts/package_ztash_smoke.sh

This replaces the ignored dist/ztash/ output with target-bound deetty-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz and deetty-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip archives, SHA256SUMS, and ztash-release.json. The package script builds both targets, runs the Linux headless --package-smoke, and removes repository Zig caches and temporary staging on exit. Windows runtime smoke remains a receiver/Wine qualification boundary unless DEETTY_ZTASH_WINE_SMOKE=1 is set.

Preview the authenticated fleet deployment only after selecting an immutable artifact-host base URL:

../../OVERZEER/tools/overzeer-ztash-deploy.sh preview \
  --release-dir dist/ztash \
  --base-url https://downloads.example.invalid/deetty

Remote mutation requires --apply and OVERZEER_CONFIRM=DEPLOY; private DDJARIN/CHOPPER credentials are resolved by OVERZEER and never belong in this repository or its package metadata.

See Install and package for runtime requirements and package contents. The dependency bundle is not a public redistribution promise until independent license/redistribution review and release receipts are complete.

Screenshots

Current 2026-09-06 alpha captures use an active-window crop inside the repository's disposable private X11/KWin boundary; no author desktop or active session appears in the images. They demonstrate current rendering, not physical input or release approval. Recapture safely with ./scripts/capture_alpha_screenshots.sh; it self-isolates by default.

Terminal workspace

Tabs and recursive splits

Native settings

NoctEd project editor

NoctEd project-wide search

What works today

The qualified Linux DEETTY host provides:

• undecorated, horizontally centered dropdown mode with responsive percentage sizing, native decorated windowed mode, and zen/fullscreen mode; every mode watches monitor geometry, work area, scale, and reveal events, then reflows or clamps itself after a display-resolution change
• native terminal tabs and recursive splits with configurable transparent or theme-colored pixel gaps and optional 70%-by-default inactive-pane dimming
• guarded broadcast input across selected panes or the active tab, with explicit enable confirmation and immediate disable
• compact tab chrome inspired by Yakuake/Konsole workflows
• bottom active-pane bar with DEETTY-wide and selected-terminal-tree CPU/memory usage
• per-pane scrollbars with wheel, track-click, thumb-drag, and Shift+Page/Home/End keyboard navigation; alternate-screen applications receive DEC mouse wheel input, retained emitted rows, or xterm-compatible cursor-key wheel fallback as appropriate, plus scrollback search, copy/paste, resize, Unicode/ANSI handling, and safe http/https/mailto links through a default-browser action or link context menu
• terminal content exposed through native ATK text semantics for Linux screen readers
• configurable launch profiles for shells, commands, SSH, tmux, and Zellij paths
• retained installed tmux 3.7b/Zellij 0.44.3 detach, DEETTY relaunch, reattach, and preserved-content proof on Plasma Wayland/X11
• maintained launcher qualification for Pi, OMP, and local-only ZIPI through the production PTY/VT/GTK/Cairo path; Pi/OMP external-provider access remains outside DEETTY
• hot-session workspace recovery plus mapped Wayland/X11 desktop-link and Recent Workspaces activation, with explicit shell-restart, tmux/Zellij-attach, or registered-agent-resume choices
• validated last-known-good settings/theme fallback, exact damaged-state retention, and a native startup recovery notice instead of a blocked terminal
• deterministic pre-state single-instance ownership for the dropdown, cold-start and Show/Toggle activation-token handoff without PTY inheritance, plus explicit separate New Workspace and Dolphin Open DEETTY Here launches
• continuity badges distinguishing restartable shells, live sessions, and agent resumes
• opt-in password-protected encrypted screen-history export
• native settings, command palette, terminal search, Quick Note, shortcut card, and Project Workspace surfaces with keyboard-accessible controls, assistive status/error feedback, and work-area-bounded narrow-window scrolling
• optional tray/status notifier integration
• native themes plus Ghostty, Xresources, Alacritty, and Noctalia JSON imports; each tab can select its own theme, and that theme maps ANSI colors used by TUI applications as well as terminal background, caret, gap, and workspace roles
• opt-in end-to-end encrypted sharing of the active terminal to one paired DEETTY device, with a native remote preview and separately approved, connection-scoped input control, assistive form/status semantics, and a work-area-bounded preview

The experimental Windows host provides a native Win32/GDI window, ConPTY, the shared Zig VT/parser, Unicode and control-key input, live resize, ANSI/true color, scrollback, clipboard paste, text selection, DEC mouse reporting, bounded tabs and recursive splits, native settings, saved-layout restore, launch profiles, local logs/minidumps, and paired session sharing/receiving. The Windows package also contains a separate native NoctEd editor with persistent 8–32 point font controls, menu/keyboard zoom, and Ctrl+wheel document zoom. Its reproducible per-user NSIS installer provides reversible shortcuts/Open-With registration and an operator-owned signing hook. Physical Windows 10/11 qualification and full Linux workspace parity remain open. See Windows alpha.

NoctEd provides on Linux:

• standalone nocted binary/process
• project tree with persistent show/hide controls and one-click parent-directory navigation
• a clean Untitled buffer on first launch, plus file tabs with 28-logical-pixel close targets and explicit interaction states
• UTF-8 editing through GtkSourceView with direct vendored Tree-sitter highlighting and GtkSourceView fallback
• document find and project Find in Files
• quick open
• reversible folding
• minimap
• persistent 8–32 point GUI font controls under Settings > Interface Font Size..., independent from View-menu, keyboard, and Ctrl+wheel code-text zoom
• recent projects
• atomic save/Save As behavior
• atomic hot-exit recovery for dirty saved and untitled tabs
• Save/Discard/Cancel protection when closing individual dirty tabs
• visible keyboard focus, descriptive search placeholders, and bounded 28-logical-pixel transient controls
• sustained Debug/ReleaseSafe Wayland/X11 search, ranking, monitor, project-lifecycle, render, memory, and teardown qualification

Paired session sharing

Session sharing mirrors presentation state, not a PTY or process. The machine running the shell remains authoritative; closing it ends the remote view. Open Session Sharing… from the Linux workspace menu. On one device choose the other device's alias and reachable endpoint, then Listen for pairing; the listener does not infer a routed return address. On the other device, choose Discover on LAN to fill the announced endpoint, review it, and choose Connect to pairing listener. If LAN discovery is unavailable, enter the listener's reachable hostname or IP directly. Compare and explicitly confirm the six-digit code on both devices. The endpoint may be a LAN address, IPv4/IPv6 address, DNS name, or a Tailscale/WireGuard/ZeroTier-style VPN name or address.

Select the saved peer and choose Share current pane, Share current tab, or Share entire session on the host, then Receive from selected device on the viewer. A pane share stays pinned to that pane and ends when it closes. A tab share follows every pane in the tab that was active when sharing started. An entire-session share follows every tab and pane in workspace order, including tabs and panes opened, closed, reordered, renamed, or moved while connected. The receiver's Shared tab selector chooses the reconstructed remote tab; the preview renders all of that tab's panes from the host split tree and ratio state. Shared pane changes keyboard focus within the layout, and clicking a pane does the same. Selected and host-active panes remain visibly distinct. The form, actions, and status use native accessibility names/roles, but the Cairo remote-terminal canvas does not yet expose its cell text through an ATK text interface; screen-reader use of remote terminal content is not qualified. Each pane keeps an independent bounded sequence and checkpoint. Receivers also retain the latest 64 host scrollback rows per pane; the preview's mouse wheel navigates that bounded history while new rows preserve the scrolled view. Ctrl+Shift+V and Shift+Insert paste only after an explicit user action, including bracketed-paste framing when the remote application requests it. Remote pastes are capped at 64 KiB so one clipboard action cannot monopolize the native UI; partial failures attempt to close bracketed-paste mode and stay visible in the sharing status. Keep the same TCP port used during pairing reachable on the host. Viewing is the default. A control request and host grant apply only to the selected pane and current connection; changing panes requires a separate grant. Grants end on revoke, disconnect, pane closure, resynchronization, or reconnect. After a link closes or fails, Reconnect securely performs a new authenticated handshake with the saved paired key and starts view-only. A stopped or failed host/viewer can also be explicitly closed without restarting DEETTY. Revoke paired device asks for confirmation, persists locally, closes a matching active share, and removes the revoked record from the actionable selector. If paired-device persistence fails, the in-memory change is identified as current-run-only and Retry saving devices remains available.

There is no relay, account service, NAT traversal, port forwarding, or subnet scan. Pairing listeners send bounded, opt-in LAN multicast/broadcast announcements containing only a temporary instance identifier, alias, port, protocol version, and capability bits. Announcements are unauthenticated hints; trust begins only after both devices confirm the same pairing code. Discovery runs only while the user asks for it in the Session Sharing dialog. Closing the dialog stops discovery, pairing, hosting, and receiving because DEETTY does not yet have a separate persistent sharing indicator. Direct endpoints remain the reliable path across routed VPNs.

After the encrypted transport starts, both sides require matching workspace, dynamic-pane, tab-hierarchy, split-layout, share-scope, resynchronization, keepalive, and per-pane-control capabilities. Sequence gaps discard an affected pane's partial snapshot and request a fresh bounded checkpoint; they are not repaired by replaying an unbounded PTY byte stream. The host also probes an otherwise idle viewer and closes a link that does not answer.

What DEETTY is not

DEETTY is not trying to be a full IDE or a VS Code clone. It is a small native workspace for terminal-heavy development.

NoctEd is not trying to be VS Code, Zed, or Sublime Text. It should become a trustworthy companion editor for quick project edits, not a plugin platform.

WIZP is the separate experimental rich-editor/WebView line. Ideas may transfer from WIZP, but DEETTY should stay native and avoid inheriting WIZP's webview, Bun, or VS Code-parity stack.

Common controls

Configured global shortcut (F10 default) show / hide
Ctrl+Shift+P           command palette
Ctrl+Shift+F           find in scrollback
Ctrl+Shift+N           quick note
Ctrl+Shift+Z           zoom / restore pane
Ctrl+Shift+G           Smart Tab filter
Ctrl+Shift+Y           tag selected panes
Ctrl+Shift+K           shortcut card
Ctrl+Tab               next visible pane
Ctrl+Shift+Tab         next tab / Smart Tab
Alt+Arrow              directional pane focus
Alt+wheel              previous / next pane
Ctrl+Alt+wheel         previous / next tab
Ctrl+wheel             pane font up / down
Shift+PageUp/PageDown terminal history page up / down
Shift+Home/End        oldest / live terminal output
Ctrl+C                 interrupt active pane
Ctrl+D                 close active pane
Ctrl+click link         open in the default browser
Right-click link        open in browser / copy address
Right-click pane        terminal actions / Open NoctEd Here

NoctEd:

Ctrl+S                 save
Ctrl+F                 find in file
Ctrl+Shift+F           find in project
Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown   previous / next file
Ctrl+wheel             zoom editor text in / out
Ctrl+W                 close file
Ctrl+Shift+[/]         fold / unfold region

More interaction detail: Compact UX.

Verification

Linux contributor gate (also requires VTE development files):

zig build check -j1 --summary all

Windows compile gate:

zig build check -Dtarget=x86_64-windows-gnu -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe

See Contributing for choosing a focused gate and the extra dependencies for graphical checks. Verification is not a prerequisite for launching the production build.

Maintainer qualification commands and historical evidence

Retained Linux Debug evidence reports 19/19 steps and 421/421 tests; the experimental Windows ReleaseSafe cross-compile also has a retained pass. These are historical receipts, not a claim that an arbitrary current checkout or machine has passed. The retained isolation receipt covers private X11/Wayland state and no inherited active display.

Bounded public-source-alpha gate (see the prerequisite list in Contributing):

./scripts/public_alpha_verify.sh

Dogfood ReleaseFast install with private crash/debug logs, atomic duration receipts, and the private GTK Layer Shell runtime needed for an undecorated Wayland dropdown:

./scripts/install_dogfood.sh
./scripts/dogfood_status.sh
./scripts/dogfood_runtime_status.sh --list-candidates

Current retained evidence includes seven operator-confirmed installed DEETTY sessions totaling 167.107 counted hours. This closes the minimum session-count baseline, not NCT-125's required clean current-build workflow recapture or the remaining four-pane, lifecycle, editor-coverage, and multi-OMP checks.

The display-backed post-upgrade lane is operator-initiated inside a disposable Plasma VM/session and performs no package refresh, telemetry, or upload:

DEETTY_DEDICATED_DISPLAY=1 ./scripts/plasma_wayland_post_upgrade.sh --full

See Dogfood install and logging.

Main maintainer gate:

./scripts/verify.sh

A single-job maintainer run on the source available at that time completed on 2026-08-03, including the Debug/ReleaseSafe terminal, renderer, PTY, NoctEd core/worker, project-index, package, release-contract, and truth-check lanes, followed by verify_cleanup scratch=true cache=true install=true artifacts=true.

Display-backed smoke gate (disposable dedicated VM/container compositor only, never the active desktop):

DEETTY_DEDICATED_DISPLAY=1 ./scripts/native_release_smoke.sh

Focused X11 and Wayland regressions use the serialized, timeout-bounded scripts/run_isolated_x11.sh and scripts/run_isolated_wayland.sh wrappers; the maintainer gate fails closed if their required isolation tools are missing.

Opt-in focused qualification lanes exist for terminal compatibility, renderer behavior, PTY lifecycle, NoctEd worker/index/search behavior, and native UI lifecycle. These are engineering evidence, not blanket public guarantees. The full detailed receipt history lives in Technical status and the active finish list lives in BACKLOG.md.

Public alpha finish line

Before publishing as a Lichforge public alpha, the project should have:

• a clean human-readable README (this file)
• current screenshots or short GIFs
• a contributor code map for navigating the large native code paths
• a minimal install/build path tested from a clean checkout
• daily-driver dogfood notes from real DEETTY/NoctEd sessions
• known limitations documented without marketing overclaim
• package/signing/redistribution status clearly separated from source release
• a retained no-surprise network/telemetry source scan

See Public alpha plan, go/no-go sheet, GitHub publication runbook, draft alpha release notes, Roadmap, project memory, the dogfood runbook, the dogfood log, and the historical pitch audit. Dogfood progress can be checked with ./scripts/dogfood_status.sh.

Philosophy

• Native runtime first.
• GUI-configurable behavior over required manual config editing.
• No telemetry or surprise network behavior.
• Small, proof-bounded claims.
• Prefer a dependable terminal workspace over a half-finished IDE.

Contributing, support, and security

Focused contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md before opening a pull request. Use SUPPORT.md for support boundaries and SECURITY.md for private vulnerability reporting. Third-party provenance is documented in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

License

DEETTY's first-party code is MIT-licensed; contributions are accepted under the same license. Vendored code and Unicode data retain their upstream copyrights and licenses; see Third-party notices. System libraries, including any copied into a dependency bundle, are not relicensed under DEETTY's MIT license.