- Language
- Match user's language
- Respond in the same language the user uses. Ghostty Vibe Coding Stack A complete terminal-based AI coding environment for macOS (Apple Silicon). Replaces heavy IDEs with lightweight, composable tools for Claude Code / AI-assisted development. How It Works Follow these steps in order. Skip steps where the tool is already installed. Copy this checklist and track progress: Setup Progress: - [ ] Step 1: Pre-flight checks - [ ] Step 2: Install Ghostty - [ ] Step 3: Install CLI tools - [ ] Step 4: Install fonts - [ ] Step 5: Configure Ghostty - [ ] Step 6: Configure Fish shell - [ ] Step 7: Install Fish plugins - [ ] Step 8: Configure lazygit - [ ] Step 9: Configure yazi - [ ] Step 10: Install Neovim + LazyVim - [ ] Step 11: Set Ghostty as default terminal - [ ] Step 12: Validate and verify Step 1: Pre-flight Checks Verify prerequisites before starting:
Check macOS and architecture
uname -m
expect: arm64
sw_vers --productVersion
expect: 13.0+
Check Homebrew
- brew
- --version
- ||
- echo
- "Homebrew not installed — install from https://brew.sh"
- If Homebrew is missing, install it:
- /bin/bash
- -c
- "
- $(
- curl
- -fsSL
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh
- )
- "
- Check what is already installed to skip redundant steps:
- for
- cmd
- in
- ghostty fish yazi lazygit nvim fzf zoxide atuin fd rg bat delta
- ;
- do
- printf
- "%-10s: "
- "
- $cmd
- "
- which
- $cmd
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- ||
- echo
- "not installed"
- done
- Use this table to resolve any missing items:
- Check
- Fix
- Homebrew not installed
- Run the install script above
- ghostty
- not found
- Step 2:
- brew install --cask ghostty
- Any CLI tool not found
- Step 3:
- brew install
- (all tools installed together)
- Architecture not arm64
- This skill targets Apple Silicon; Intel Macs may have compatibility issues with some tools
- Step 2: Install Ghostty
- Check if Ghostty is already installed:
- ls
- /Applications/Ghostty.app
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Ghostty installed"
- ||
- echo
- "Not installed"
- If not installed:
- brew
- install
- --cask
- ghostty
- Step 3: Install CLI Tools
- Install all tools in one command (already-installed tools are skipped automatically):
- brew
- install
- fish yazi lazygit neovim fzf zoxide atuin fd ripgrep bat git-delta
- Step 4: Install Fonts
- Ask the user which font setup they prefer before installing:
- Option A: CJK-optimized (recommended for Chinese/Japanese/Korean users)
- brew
- install
- --cask
- font-maple-mono-nf-cn font-sarasa-gothic font-jetbrains-mono-nerd-font
- Option B: Latin-only (English-primary users)
- brew
- install
- --cask
- font-jetbrains-mono-nerd-font
- Step 5: Configure Ghostty
- Read the complete config template from
- references/ghostty-config.md
- .
- Before writing, ask the user about preferences:
- Theme
-
- Run
- ghostty +list-themes
- to show options. Popular: Monokai Vivid, Rose Pine, TokyoNight Storm, Catppuccin Mocha
- Transparency
-
- Whether to enable background opacity (some users prefer fully opaque)
- Font size
-
- Default 15, adjust for their display
- Check if config already exists before writing:
- mkdir
- -p
- ~/.config/ghostty
- ls
- ~/.config/ghostty/config
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Config exists"
- ||
- echo
- "No config"
- If config exists: show current content, ask the user:
- (A) Back up and replace
- :
- cp ~/.config/ghostty/config ~/.config/ghostty/config.backup.$(date +%s)
- then write new config
- (B) Skip
-
- keep existing config
- (C) Show diff and merge
-
- show differences, let user decide per-section
- After writing, ALWAYS validate:
- ghostty +validate-config
- If validation shows theme errors, the theme name likely needs exact casing. Check with
- ghostty +list-themes | grep -i
- .
- Step 6: Configure Fish Shell
- Read the complete config template from
- references/fish-config.md
- .
- Ask the user if they want to register Fish as a login shell. Explain this means:
- Fish will be available in
- chsh
- as a login shell option
- It requires
- sudo
- to modify
- /etc/shells
- Their current shell remains the default unless they explicitly run
- chsh -s $(which fish)
- later
- If the user agrees, register Fish:
- grep
- -q
- "
- $(
- which
- fish
- )
- "
- /etc/shells
- ||
- echo
- "
- $(
- which
- fish
- )
- "
- |
- sudo
- tee
- -a
- /etc/shells
- Do NOT run
- chsh
- automatically.
- Only mention it as an optional next step if the user asks to make Fish their default shell.
- Check if config already exists before writing:
- mkdir
- -p
- ~/.config/fish/
- {
- completions,conf.d,functions
- }
- ls
- ~/.config/fish/config.fish
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Config exists"
- ||
- echo
- "No config"
- If config exists: show current content, ask the user:
- (A) Back up and replace
- :
- cp ~/.config/fish/config.fish ~/.config/fish/config.fish.backup.$(date +%s)
- then write new config
- (B) Skip
-
- keep existing config
- (C) Show diff and merge
-
- show differences, merge section by section.
- Idempotency check
-
- before adding init lines (
- fzf --fish | source
- ,
- zoxide init fish | source
- ,
- atuin init fish | source
- ) or aliases, grep for them in the existing file to avoid duplicates.
- After writing the config, validate Fish can parse it:
- fish
- -n
- ~/.config/fish/config.fish
- &&
- echo
- "Fish config syntax OK"
- ||
- echo
- "Fish config has syntax errors"
- If syntax errors are found, show the error output and fix the config before proceeding.
- Import existing shell history into atuin:
- fish
- -c
- "atuin import auto"
- Step 7: Install Fish Plugins
- Check if Fisher (plugin manager) is installed:
- fish
- -c
- "type fisher"
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- ||
- fish
- -c
- "curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jorgebucaran/fisher/main/functions/fisher.fish | source && fisher install jorgebucaran/fisher"
- Install Tide prompt:
- fish
- -c
- "fisher install IlanCosman/tide@v6"
- Step 8: Configure lazygit
- Read the complete config template from
- references/lazygit-config.md
- .
- The reference includes color themes for Monokai, TokyoNight, and Rose Pine. Match the lazygit theme to whichever Ghostty theme the user chose in Step 5.
- Check if config already exists before writing:
- mkdir
- -p
- ~/.config/lazygit
- ls
- ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Config exists"
- ||
- echo
- "No config"
- If config exists: show current content, ask the user:
- (A) Back up and replace
- :
- cp ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml.backup.$(date +%s)
- then write new config
- (B) Skip
-
- keep existing config
- (C) Show diff and merge
-
- show differences, let user decide per-section
- After writing, validate the YAML is parseable by lazygit:
- lazygit
- -c
- ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml
- --version
- &&
- echo
- "lazygit config OK"
- ||
- echo
- "lazygit config may have issues"
- If lazygit is not yet available, validate YAML syntax with:
- python3
- -c
- "import yaml; yaml.safe_load(open('
- $HOME
- /.config/lazygit/config.yml'))"
- &&
- echo
- "YAML syntax OK"
- ||
- echo
- "YAML syntax error"
- Step 9: Configure yazi
- Read the complete config template from
- references/yazi-config.md
- .
- Check if config already exists before writing:
- mkdir
- -p
- ~/.config/yazi
- ls
- ~/.config/yazi/yazi.toml
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Config exists"
- ||
- echo
- "No config"
- If config exists: show current content, ask the user:
- (A) Back up and replace
- :
- cp ~/.config/yazi/yazi.toml ~/.config/yazi/yazi.toml.backup.$(date +%s)
- then write new config
- (B) Skip
-
- keep existing config
- (C) Show diff and merge
-
- show differences, let user decide per-section
- After writing, validate the TOML is parseable:
- python3
- -c
- "import tomllib; tomllib.load(open('
- $HOME
- /.config/yazi/yazi.toml', 'rb'))"
- &&
- echo
- "yazi config OK"
- ||
- echo
- "TOML syntax error"
- Step 10: Install Neovim + LazyVim
- Check if nvim config already exists:
- ls
- ~/.config/nvim/init.lua
- 2
- >
- /dev/null
- &&
- echo
- "Nvim config exists"
- ||
- echo
- "No config"
- If config exists, ask the user:
- (A) Back up and replace
- :
- cp -r ~/.config/nvim ~/.config/nvim.backup.$(date +%s)
- then clone fresh
- (B) Skip
- keep existing Neovim config
If no existing config (or user chose A), clone to a temp directory first so a failed clone does not destroy the existing config:
NVIM_TMP
=
$(
mktemp
-d
)
git
clone https://github.com/LazyVim/starter
"
$NVIM_TMP
/nvim"
&&
rm
-rf
"
$NVIM_TMP
/nvim/.git"
Only replace the config after a successful clone:
rm
-rf
~/.config/nvim
mv
"
$NVIM_TMP
/nvim"
~/.config/nvim
rm
-rf
"
$NVIM_TMP
"
If the clone fails, inform the user that their existing config (or backup) is untouched and suggest retrying when network is available.
Tell the user: first time opening
nvim
, LazyVim auto-installs all plugins — wait about 30 seconds.
Step 11: Set Ghostty as Default Terminal (Optional)
Ask the user if they want Ghostty to replace their current default terminal in Finder's "Open in Terminal".
If yes, read the Swift helper from
references/set-default-terminal.md
and run it.
Step 12: Validate and Verify
Run final verification:
echo
"=== Tool Versions ==="
for
cmd
in
fish yazi lazygit nvim fzf zoxide atuin fd rg bat delta
;
do
printf
"%-10s: "
"
$cmd
"
$cmd
--version
2
&1 | head -1 done echo "" echo "=== Ghostty Config ===" ghostty +validate-config 2
&1 || echo "Config OK (no output = no errors)" echo "" echo "=== Fish Shell ===" fish -c "echo Fish is working" Present the user with a summary of what was installed and configured, plus the quick reference below. Quick Reference Alias Command y yazi (file manager) yy yazi with cd-on-exit lg lazygit v nvim cc claude z
zoxide smart cd Ghostty Shortcut Action Cmd+D Vertical split Cmd+Shift+D Horizontal split Cmd+Alt+Arrow Navigate splits Ctrl+ Quick Terminal (global) Fish Key Action Tab Accept autosuggestion Alt+Tab Accept one word → Completion menu Ctrl+R History search (atuin) Recovery / Rollback If new config breaks something, open Terminal.app (macOS built-in, always available) and run the appropriate fix: Broken Fix Ghostty won't launch or renders wrong mv ~/.config/ghostty/config ~/.config/ghostty/config.broken — Ghostty uses defaults on next launch Fish shell broken on startup mv ~/.config/fish/config.fish ~/.config/fish/config.fish.broken — Fish loads without custom config Want to revert Fish as login shell chsh -s /bin/zsh Want to remove Fish from /etc/shellssudo sed -i '' '|/fish$ lazygit or yazi broken Delete the config file ( ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml or ~/.config/yazi/yazi.toml ) — tool reverts to defaults Neovim/LazyVim broken rm -rf ~/.config/nvim — if you have a backup: cp -r ~/.config/nvim.backup.~/.config/nvim Any config with .backup. cp .backup. to restore the backed-up version Troubleshooting Theme names require exact casing with spaces : Wrong: rose-pine , tokyo-night Correct: Rose Pine , TokyoNight Storm List available: ghostty +list-themes Validate config: ghostty +validate-config Cmd+V does not paste images into Claude Code (Ghostty bug, Discussion #10117 ): Use Ctrl+V instead, or drag-and-drop image files Fish key binding syntax differs from Zsh : Wrong: bind -k right complete ( -k is zsh syntax) Correct: bind right complete Also override raw escape: bind \e[C complete Chinese text too large or misaligned : Add CJK font as first font-family entry Set adjust-cell-height = 20% List available fonts : ghostty +list-fonts List available themes : ghostty +list-themes