nowledge-co/con-terminal

The Native Terminal Emulator with a builtin AI Harness

con – a GPU‑accelerated terminal with an AI assistant

What it is – con is a native terminal emulator written in Rust that ships with a built‑in AI “agent”. The terminal itself is fast, GPU‑rendered (using the GPUI framework) and works like a traditional CLI tool (SSH, tmux, panes, etc.). When you need help, you can type a request into a bottom input bar; the AI reads the surrounding shell context, asks for confirmation, and can execute commands or return suggestions without leaving the terminal.

Key features

  • Terminal‑first UI – smooth, hardware‑accelerated rendering via the GPUI library; supports macOS (Metal), Windows (early beta) and Linux (preview).
  • Built‑in AI harness – an agent that can understand whether your input is a shell command or a request for assistance, reads the current terminal context, and runs in a “smart mode” that asks before acting.
  • Agent‑aware workflows – works with ssh, tmux, and custom “skills” that let you turn frequent CLI patterns into slash‑style commands.
  • Quick controls – keyboard shortcuts to toggle focus, show/hide the input bar, open an optional “Quick Terminal” drop‑down (macOS only), and switch between command and agent modes.
  • Extensible con-cli – a command‑line helper that can be scripted, used in CI, or orchestrated by external agents.
  • Configuration – a plain‑text con.conf (or con-terminal.conf on Windows) lets you pick AI providers, themes, shortcuts, and enable/disable suggestions.
  • Open‑source & MIT‑licensed – the project re‑uses several upstream Rust crates (Ghostty for terminal rendering, Rig for the agent framework, etc.).

Current status – active beta. macOS is fully supported (beta), Windows is in early beta (tracked via issue #34), and Linux is available as a preview (issue #18). Releases are posted on GitHub and an installer script is provided for each platform.

Installation

  • macOS – brew install --cask nowledge-co/tap/con-beta or run the curl‑pipe installer (curl -fsSL https://con-releases.nowledge.co/install.sh | sh).
  • Linux – same curl installer; binaries are placed in ~/.local/bin. Arch users can install con-bin from the AUR.
  • Windows – PowerShell installer (irm https://con-releases.nowledge.co/install.ps1 | iex) or download the zip. A community Scoop bucket also exists.

Documentation – a full docs site (https://con.nowledge.co/docs) covers installation, configuration, quick controls, the built‑in agent, custom skills, workspace layouts, and the con-cli API. Screenshots and a short demo video are included in the repo.

License – MIT.

In short, con is aimed at developers who love a classic terminal experience but want optional, context‑aware AI assistance without leaving the shell.

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