check-ghostty-update

name

check-ghostty-update

description

Check whether ghostty (the terminal core termio embeds via the termio-sh/libghostty-swift fork) has shipped anything worth pulling since the binary termio is currently pinned to. Resolves the pinned ghostty sha, diffs it against ghostty main, filters the gap for changes that actually reach termio's embedded VT/terminal core (dropping app-chrome / packaging / i18n noise), and gives a keep-waiting-or-pull-now verdict. Invoke when the user says 'check ghostty update', 'is ghostty out of date', 'did ghostty ship anything major', 'should I bump ghostty/libghostty', '看看 ghostty 有没有更新', '检查 ghostty 更新', 'ghostty 有什么重大更新', or '要不要更新 libghostty'.

Check ghostty update

termio does not build ghostty itself — it embeds ghostty's terminal core through the termio-sh/libghostty-swift fork, whose weekly CI rebuilds GhosttyKit.xcframework against ghostty main and publishes it as a storage.X.Y.Z release ([[termio-libghostty-swift]]). So "is ghostty up to date" really means: how far is ghostty main ahead of the sha baked into the binary termio is pinned to, and is anything in that gap relevant to termio?

termio is an embedder, so only a slice of ghostty's changes matter. Weight the diff accordingly — see Signal vs. noise below. Local self-build is impossible on this Mac (Tahoe/zig deadlock); updating the binary always goes through the fork's CI.

What this skill does NOT do

Report only. It does not tag the fork, trigger CI, or bump any pin. Those are the follow-up the verdict points to (and separate skills / explicit asks).

Procedure

Run these steps and report; everything is read-only gh + grep.

1. Resolve the ghostty sha termio is currently on

The pin chain is: termio Package.resolved → fork version tag → that tag's Package.swift names a storage.X.Y.Z binary → that storage release's title carries the ghostty sha (format ... · ghostty v1.3.1-<N>-g<sha>).

REPO=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
FORK=termio-sh/libghostty-swift
GHOSTTY=ghostty-org/ghostty

VER=$(grep -A6 '"identity" : "libghostty-swift"' "$REPO/Package.resolved" \
      | grep '"version"' | head -1 | sed -E 's/.*"version" : "([^"]+)".*/\1/')
STORAGE=$(gh api "repos/$FORK/contents/Package.swift?ref=$VER" --jq '.content' \
      | base64 -d | grep -oE 'storage\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+' | head -1)
NAME=$(gh release view "$STORAGE" --repo "$FORK" --json name --jq '.name')
CUR=$(echo "$NAME" | grep -oE 'g[0-9a-f]{7,}' | sed 's/^g//')
echo "termio pin: fork $VER → $STORAGE → ghostty $NAME (sha $CUR)"

If any of these come back empty, fall back: the fork's latest storage.* release is usually what a fresh resolve would pick — gh release list --repo $FORK | grep storage | head -1 — and note the discrepancy.

2. Diff against ghostty main

gh api "repos/$GHOSTTY/compare/$CUR...main" \
  --jq '"ahead: \(.ahead_by), head: \(.commits[-1].sha[0:7]) @ \(.commits[-1].commit.author.date[0:10])"'

• ahead: 0 → you are current. Stop and report "nothing to pull."
• Otherwise capture ahead_by and the head sha/date for the report.

3. Pull the gap and separate signal from noise

gh api "repos/$GHOSTTY/compare/$CUR...main" \
  --jq '.commits[].commit.message | split("\n")[0]' > /tmp/ghostty_gap.txt
wc -l /tmp/ghostty_gap.txt

Signal — changes that reach termio's embedded core (surface these): prefixes lib-vt:, terminal:, terminal/…:, renderer:, font:, kitty (graphics / keyboard / protocol), osc, selection, sixel, hyperlink, unicode, perf / throughput, scrollback, resize/reflow, mode/DEC private modes.

Noise — termio host-manages IO and ships its own AppKit/SwiftUI chrome, so ignore: macOS: (splits, tabs, title bar, NSScrollPocket, HIG), gtk/gnome, pkg/… / apple-sdk / build.zig, i18n/translation, nushell/shell-integration, docs, ci, gitignore, VOUCHED/changelog.

grep -iE 'lib-vt|terminal[:/]|renderer|kitty|osc|selection|sixel|hyperlink|unicode|scrollback|reflow|throughput|perf|font' /tmp/ghostty_gap.txt \
  | grep -ivE 'macos:|gtk|gnome|pkg/|apple-sdk|i18n|translat|nushell|docs:|^ci|gitignore|vouched' \
  | sort -u

Read the survivors yourself — the grep is a first pass, not the judgement. For any that look big (memory/perf wins, a new VT/embedder API termio could use, a protocol termio renders like kitty graphics), confirm it isn't already in the pinned binary by date (a commit older than the binary's build date is already in) or with a compare: gh api repos/$GHOSTTY/compare/<that-sha>...$CUR --jq .status → ahead/identical = already have it.

4. Verdict

Give a short, honest call:

• Nothing relevant (gap is all app-chrome/packaging/i18n) → "no reason to bump; the Monday cron will roll it forward on its own." This is the common case — ghostty is high-velocity but most of it is app-layer.
• Something relevant but minor → name it, say it'll arrive with the next weekly build, no rush.
• Something genuinely major (big perf/memory win, a VT/embedder API termio wants, a correctness fix in a path termio exercises) → name it with its PR #, and offer the pull-now path.

Pull-now path (only when the verdict warrants it)

The binary can't be built locally. To pull ghostty early:

1. Manually dispatch the fork's CI against a specific ghostty ref — the fork's .github/workflows/build.yml takes a ghostty_ref input (default builds main HEAD): gh workflow run build.yml --repo termio-sh/libghostty-swift -f ghostty_ref=main (or pin an exact sha). It publishes a new storage.X.Y.Z + X.Y.Z tag (~30 min).
2. Bump termio's pin (Package.swift from: + re-resolve Package.resolved), and the iOS TermioMobile.xcodeproj pin if the phone should get it too (it pins the fork separately — see [[termio-libghostty-swift]]).
3. macos-rebuild-dev and verify.

Notes

• ghostty cuts stable tags rarely (last was v1.3.1, 2026-03), and the fork tracks main, so termio typically rides ~1400+ commits ahead of ghostty's newest stable tag. "No new ghostty release" ≠ "nothing new" — always compare against main, never against tags.
• The fork's own semver (1.0.x) is the wrapper version and is decoupled from ghostty's version; a wrapper-only change (like the Swift-side InMemoryTerminalSession fixes) bumps the fork tag while reusing the same storage.* ghostty binary. That's why step 1 reads the storage tag from the pinned tag's Package.swift rather than assuming storage.<same-version>.
• Needs the gh CLI authenticated. All calls are read-only.