tw93/Kaku

A fast, good-looking, AI-friendly terminal for the Mac.

Kaku – An AI‑friendly macOS terminal

What it is – Kaku is a pre‑configured macOS terminal built on the WezTerm engine. It ships with sensible defaults (JetBrains Mono font, dark/light themes, copy‑on‑select, macOS‑style shortcuts) and a full Lua‑based configuration layer, while adding AI‑centric helpers such as command‑suggestion, natural‑language‑to‑command conversion, and an integrated chat panel.

Why it matters – Modern developers increasingly rely on AI assistants (Claude, Gemini, Copilot, etc.) while working in the shell. Kaku makes that workflow frictionless: the terminal surface shows which AI agent is active, notifies you when an AI‑generated suggestion is ready, and lets you apply it with a single shortcut. It also offers remote‑access to your Mac’s terminals via a browser, which is handy for multi‑device setups.

Key features

  • Ready‑to‑use UI – JetBrains Mono, automatic theme switching, copy‑on‑select, familiar macOS shortcuts.
  • Tabs & panes – Split windows, tab navigation, state restoration on restart.
  • Context menu – Right‑click actions for paste, search, AI chat, pane/tab management.
  • Clickable links – Cmd+Click opens URLs or file paths directly.
  • AI integration – Indicator of active agent, notifications for Claude Code, optional assistant for command suggestions, natural‑language‑to‑command (# description), and a full chat panel (Cmd+L).
  • Remote access – kaku remote exposes the terminal UI in a browser on another machine.
  • Shell tooling – Built‑in Zsh completion, syntax highlighting, lazygit and Yazi shortcuts.
  • Lua configuration – Full control over fonts, themes, shortcuts, and terminal behavior via ~/.config/kaku/kaku.lua.

How to get started

# via DMG
brew install --cask kaku   # Homebrew cask
# then launch Kaku, run the init wizard
kaku init                    # installs optional tools, sets up shell integration
kaku --version               # verify installation

After the first launch, the right‑click menu and the Cmd+Shift+A shortcut give you access to the AI panel.

AI workflow

  • Command suggestions – When a command fails, the configured assistant can propose a fix; press Cmd+Shift+E to paste it.
  • Natural‑language commands – Type # <description> and hit Enter; the assistant generates the corresponding shell command.
  • Chat – Cmd+L opens a chat window tied to the current terminal session; you can discuss output, ask for file‑related actions, or continue the conversation from another shell via kaku chat.
  • Supported services – Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Kimi Code, etc. (the terminal does not host any model; you provide your own API keys.)

Documentation & support – The project hosts a website (kaku.fun) with a feature comparison, full key‑binding reference, configuration guide, and CLI reference. Issues, PRs, and a small sponsorship model (via the author’s paid app Mole) are welcomed.

License – MIT (with attribution to WezTerm and bundled fonts).

All details are taken directly from the repository’s README.

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