Updating my toolbox: Ghostty and Fish

Often when I’m setting up new computers I take a bit of time to evaluate my programming toolbox and make some (usually small) adjustments to it. In January I got myself a new mac mini M4 and for whatever reasons I got inspired to dive much deeper than usual. This time around I spent a lot of time playing with different terminals, editors (e.g. neovim and helix), shells, configuration managers (mostly chezmoi), etc.

The two biggest toolbox updates I ended up doing were:

• Switching from iTerm2 to Ghostty
• Switching from Zsh to Fish

I didn’t really have any particular issues with iTerm2 and Zsh - I’ve been using them for ages and they were both staples in my toolbox. Still, one can get bored even with good tools and I’ve always liked to tinker with new tools and look for ways to optimize my workflows. That’s my kryptonite!

Ghostty

While I was happy with iTerm2 overall, I was somewhat frustrated with iTerm2’s ever growing list of features, that I never really cared much about. I probably never really knew or needed more than 10% of what it has to offer, so when it comes to the terminal I was looking for something that’s just simpler.

I researched the landscape of alternatives (e.g. WezTerm, Kitty, Alacrity) and Ghostty caught my eye because of its focus on simplicity and performance. There was some weird hype around the project, that I didn’t quite understand (it’s a terminal emulator after all), but this didn’t deter me from trying it out.

I liked the simple setup (it’s quite useful with the default settings) and the old-school configuration via a config file. My Ghostty config is super simple:

keybind = global:ctrl+grave_accent=toggle_quick_terminal

command = /opt/homebrew/bin/fish

background-opacity = 0.9

macos-option-as-alt = true

font-family = Fira Code Mono

I’m guessing it doesn’t really need much explanation - a custom keybinding for the dropdown terminal window and some really simple settings.

I did encounter a few weird bugs here and there (e.g. the dropdown terminal not appearing unless I focus one of the regular Ghostty windows), but overall I didn’t have any serious issues with Ghostty and I’m quite happy with it for now.

At some point I also entertained the idea of using Warp, but I don’t like much the idea of a terminal that requires a paid subscription to be fully useful. There are some other less invasive ways to get to get good AI tooling in your terminal (e.g. Aider, Claude Code, etc).

Fish

Recently I wrote about my move away from “Oh My Zsh”.¹ After this was done I realized I’m using so little of Zsh’s functionality that switching to Fish would be trivial. There’s also the big Fish 4.0 release, where Fish is rewritten in Rust!

As you can imagine, if you’re reading this, I did make the switch and I’m super happy with Fish. Lots of small quality of life improvements and very good out-of-the-box experience. Below is my entire config.fish:

/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv | source

if status is-interactive
    # zoxide
    zoxide init fish | source

    # Commands to run in interactive sessions can go here
    starship init fish | source

    # rbenv
    rbenv init - fish | source

    # opam
    eval (opam env)
end

abbr -a -- be 'bundle exec'
abbr -a -- gst 'git status'
abbr -a -- lg lazygit
abbr -a --position anywhere --command git -- co checkout
abbr -a --position anywhere --command git -- st status
abbr -a --position anywhere --command hx --command nvim --command emacs -- fish ~/.config/fish/config.fish

It’s more or less the same as my Zsh setup from the article I’ve mentioned above, sans the fzf integration. I’m still wondering whether I need in Fish, as the default history search is not bad at all.

I love the following Fish features:

• Syntax highlighting out-of-the-box
• Completion and history search
• The abbreviations are just awesome!

I still need to go over the complete manual and try out some more advanced features, but I’m really happy with my ultra basic Fish setup. Fish has been on my radar for at least 10 years, so I definitely regret a little bit not trying it out earlier.

Better late than never, right?

Epilogue

Lately I’ve been drawn by tools that embrace the philosophy “no configuration needed” and provide great experience out-of-the-box. Ghostty and Fish certainly fit the bill and they delivered small productivity improvements for me without any efforts on my end. When I was playing with neovim an helix I really realized how powerful this approach can be.

Sure, I’m the guy who spent 20 years writing Emacs plugins and tinkering with his Emacs config, but I have to admit that the older I get the more appreciative I become of simpler solutions that just get the job done and I don’t require a life (or two) to truly master.

Expect to read more about my Ghostty and Fish experience going forward. In the mean time - always be improving your own toolboxes! Keep hacking!

1. See /articles/2025/03/01/back-to-the-basics-zsh-without-oh-my-zsh/ ↩