Amanay

A disciplined GTK4 terminal emulator built in C.

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A disciplined GTK4 terminal emulator built in C.

Amanay is part of the Light Desktop Stack (LDS): a small, controlled, and maintainable desktop stack built for predictable behavior.

It is designed for real daily use, not feature accumulation.

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What it does

• Tabs and vertical splits
• Text search with match count
• URL detection and opening
• Configurable shortcuts
• Runtime diagnostics for long sessions
• --geometry, --title, --working-directory, --command flags
• --no-remote for independent instances

What it does not do

Amanay is not a GNOME Terminal clone. It is not a feature-heavy terminal.

Horizontal splits, nested pane trees, themes, plugins, and scripting APIs are outside its scope by design.

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Dependencies

Dependency	Minimum version
GTK4	4.12
Libadwaita	1.4
VTE (vte-2.91-gtk4)	0.74
Meson	1.0
Ninja	1.10
GLib / GIO	2.78

On Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install \
  libgtk-4-dev \
  libadwaita-1-dev \
  libvte-2.91-gtk4-dev \
  meson \
  ninja-build

On Fedora:

sudo dnf install \
  gtk4-devel \
  libadwaita-devel \
  vte291-gtk4-devel \
  meson \
  ninja-build

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Build

meson setup build
meson compile -C build

Run after building:

./build/src/lds-terminal

Install system-wide:

meson install -C build

Build options

Option	Default	Description
strict_build	true	Treat warnings as errors (-Werror)
default_renderer	cairo	GSK renderer: auto, cairo, ngl, vulkan
tests	true	Build test targets
system_check_policy	warn	Unsupported host: warn or error

Example:

meson setup build -Ddefault_renderer=ngl -Dsystem_check_policy=error

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Tests

meson test -C build --print-errorlogs

The suite covers lifecycle, concurrency, settings consistency, search policy, link detection, and several regression scenarios.

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Diagnostics

Set LDS_TERMINAL_DIAG=1 to enable runtime diagnostics output.

LDS_TERMINAL_DIAG=1 lds-terminal

Useful for debugging hangs, shutdown ordering issues, or unexpected behavior under sustained use.

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Naming

• Amanay is the user-facing name.
• lds-terminal is the technical identity: application ID, executable, schema, resource prefix, and WM_CLASS.

Do not mix them.

The tools/identity_guard.sh script enforces this and runs on every push via CI.

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Architecture

• Command-line parsing is separated from runtime setup
• Window management stays isolated from terminal widget logic
• Search, links, tabs, settings, and diagnostics live in dedicated modules
• The VTE layer is treated as a controlled subsystem, not the whole app
• Ownership and teardown are explicit, so lifecycle transitions stay bounded

Full architecture notes: docs/DESIGN.md

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Run before submitting:

tools/check_comment_policy.sh
meson compile -C build
meson test -C build --print-errorlogs
tools/identity_guard.sh

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.