ghostty-terminfo

name	ghostty-terminfo
description	Use when SSHing to a remote host from Ghostty terminal and encountering terminfo errors, missing colors, broken key bindings, or "unknown terminal type" warnings

Ghostty Terminfo Installation

Overview

Ghostty uses xterm-ghostty as its $TERM value. Remote hosts that lack this terminfo entry will show broken terminal behavior. The fix is to transfer the terminfo from the local machine to the remote host.

When to Use

• Remote SSH sessions show "unknown terminal type xterm-ghostty"
• Missing colors, broken backspace/arrow keys, or garbled output over SSH
• Setting up a new remote host for use with Ghostty
• Writing SSH scripts that should handle Ghostty terminfo automatically

Quick Reference

Task	Command
Check if remote has terminfo	ssh HOST 'infocmp xterm-ghostty >/dev/null 2>&1'
Install terminfo on remote	infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh HOST tic -x -
One-liner check + install	ssh HOST 'infocmp xterm-ghostty >/dev/null 2>&1' || infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh HOST tic -x -
Verify after install	ssh HOST 'infocmp xterm-ghostty >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo OK'

Implementation

Local Install

If you're already on the machine, just pipe it directly to tic:

infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | tic -x -

One-Time Install

infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh user@host tic -x -

This exports the local terminfo and compiles it on the remote host. Only needs to run once per remote machine.

Conditional Install in SSH Scripts

if [ "$TERM" = "xterm-ghostty" ]; then
  ssh "$HOST" 'infocmp xterm-ghostty >/dev/null 2>&1' || \
    infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh "$HOST" tic -x -
fi

Only runs when connecting from Ghostty, skips if already installed.

Common Mistakes

• Running from non-Ghostty terminal - infocmp xterm-ghostty fails if the local machine doesn't have the terminfo. Run from Ghostty or a machine with Ghostty installed.
• Forgetting -x flag - Both infocmp -x and tic -x need the extended flag to preserve Ghostty's extended capabilities.
• Workaround instead of fix - Setting TERM=xterm-256color before SSH works but loses Ghostty-specific features. Install the terminfo instead.