High-performance cinematic terminal renderer
Watch full video demo (47s)
- 42 built-in color schemes and 24 character set presets
- Cinematic animation engine with phosphor persistence, depth fog, and parallax layers
- Configurable speed, density, FPS, and glitch intensity
- Alternate screen with diff-based rendering — no scrollback spam
- Adaptive throttling: reduces CPU usage when idle
- Screensaver mode
- Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, Windows, Android (Termux)
- Rust stable toolchain to build from source
- A terminal supporting ANSI escape sequences, alternate screen, and raw mode
- Best results with 256-color or truecolor terminals
# Run from source
cargo run --release
# Build a release binary
cargo build --release
# Run with a color scheme
./target/release/cosmostrix --color rainbow --speed 12Download from Releases, verify the checksum, and place cosmostrix in your PATH.
Available platforms:
- Linux x86_64:
v1(compatible),v2,v3,v4 - macOS:
darwin-aarch64-native(Apple Silicon) - Windows:
windows-x86_64,windows-aarch64-native - Android (Termux):
android-aarch64-native
REPO="oxyzenQ/cosmostrix"
TAG="v1.2.0"
PLATFORM="linux-x86_64-v3"
curl -LO "https://github.com/${REPO}/releases/download/${TAG}/cosmostrix-bin-${TAG}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz"
curl -LO "https://github.com/${REPO}/releases/download/${TAG}/cosmostrix-bin-${TAG}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz.sha512"
sha512sum -c "cosmostrix-bin-${TAG}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz.sha512"
tar -xzf "cosmostrix-bin-${TAG}-${PLATFORM}.tar.gz"
./cosmostrix -iparu -S cosmostrix-bin # or: yay -S cosmostrix-bingit clone https://github.com/oxyzenQ/cosmostrix.git
cd cosmostrix
cargo install --path .
cosmostrix -icosmostrix # default settings
cosmostrix --color rainbow --speed 12 # color + speed
cosmostrix --screensaver # exit on keypress
cosmostrix --message "wake up, neo" # overlay message
cosmostrix --charset katakana # character set
cosmostrix --low-power # power-saving modeRun cosmostrix --help for common options or cosmostrix --help-detail for the full reference.
COMMON OPTIONS
-c, --color <name> Color theme
--charset <name> Character preset
-f, --fps <1-240> Target FPS
-S, --speed <0.001-1000> Rain speed
-d, --density <0.01-5.0> Rain density
-s, --screensaver Exit on keypress
-m, --message <text> Overlay message
--low-power Power-saving mode
--glitch-level <level> Glitch intensity (none|subtle|default|intense)
DIAGNOSTICS
--doctor Compatibility report
--benchmark Renderer benchmark
-i, --info Build and runtime information
DISCOVERY
--list-colors Show available color themes
--list-charsets Show available charset presets
--defaults Show the default runtime profile
q / Esc Quit p Pause / resume
c / C Cycle theme s / S Cycle charset
[ / ] Density Up / Down Speed
g Toggle glitch Tab Toggle shading
Space Reseed animation m Cycle profile
Persistent defaults can be set in ~/.config/cosmostrix/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/cosmostrix/config).
color = ocean
charset = matrix
fps = 60
speed = 10
density = 1.5
glitch-level = default
CLI arguments always take precedence over config file values. See --defaults for the curated default profile.
42 themes available. Run --list-colors to see all, including space-themed sets (cosmos, nebula, stars, aurora, galaxy, supernova, and more).
24 presets available. Run --list-charsets to see all (binary, matrix, katakana, braille, cyberpunk, hacker, and more).
See benchmark/README.md for profiling artifacts and the reproducible benchmark script.
cargo test --all
cargo fmt --all
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warningsCreate a release by pushing a v* tag. See workflow/about-ci.md for CI and release workflow details.
PRs and issues are welcome. Please run cargo fmt and cargo clippy before submitting.
MIT. See LICENSE. Brand usage governed by TRADEMARK.md.