con
The terminal emulator with AI harness, nothing more
Open source. GPU-accelerated. Terminal-first.
Built for SSH, tmux, and agent-native workflows.
Why con?
con is for people who want a serious terminal first and AI help only when it earns its place.
If you're an old-school terminal user and only want enough AI harness when needed, nothing more or less, con is for you.
What it does
- a terminal that is fast and elegant
- a built-in AI harness that can read context, ask before acting, and work directly in the terminal you can already see
- terminal-native workflows for CLI work, with
ssh,tmux, and coding-agent-aware orchestration
Status
con is in active beta development.
Screenshot
View the full screenshot gallery
2 min know-how
Quick controls:
| Action | macOS | Windows / Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Switch focus between terminal and input | ⌘ I | ⌃ ⇧ I |
| Show or hide the bottom input bar | ⌃ ` | ⌃ ` |
| Show or hide the agent panel | ⌘ L | ⌃ ⇧ L |
| Cycle bottom-bar mode | ⌘ ; | ⌃ ; |
| Show or hide Quick Terminal | ⌘ Backslash after enabling | Not available |
- Smart mode decides whether your text is a shell command or an agent request.
- Command mode runs shell commands. With multiple panes, the pane mini map lets you choose the focused pane, all panes, or a selected set.
- Agent mode sends text directly to the built-in agent.
Quick Terminal is off by default. On macOS, enable its global shortcut in Settings -> Keys, or open it from the command palette / View menu while Con is frontmost.
Install
macOS, Homebrew
brew install --cask nowledge-co/tap/con-betaThis installs the app and exposes con-cli on your PATH for automation.
macOS
curl -fsSL https://con-releases.nowledge.co/install.sh | shThis installs the app into /Applications and links con-cli into
~/.local/bin. Or download the DMG directly from
Releases.
Linux (preview, official installer)
curl -fsSL https://con-releases.nowledge.co/install.sh | shThis installs both con and con-cli into ~/.local/bin. Or download
con-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz from the latest
Release.
Arch Linux / AUR (community)
yay -S con-bincon-bin is maintained on AUR by
czyt. paru -S con-bin works too.
Use the official installer above if you need the newest beta immediately after
a release.
Windows (official installer)
irm https://con-releases.nowledge.co/install.ps1 | iexThis installs con-app.exe and con-cli.exe into the same PATH directory.
Or download con-windows-x86_64.zip from the latest
Release.
Windows / Scoop (community)
scoop bucket add jam https://github.com/EFLKumo/jam
scoop install jam/con-terminalThe Scoop manifest is maintained by
EFLKumo in the
jam bucket. It installs a portable Con and
adds con-app and con-cli to your PATH.
To build from source, see HACKING.md.
Docs
Start here:
- Install: get con on macOS, Windows, or Linux.
- Quick controls: focus switching, agent panel, and command modes.
- Quick Terminal: set up the optional macOS drop-down terminal.
- Terminal workflows: tabs, panes, broadcast, pane zoom, links, and surfaces.
- Built-in agent: use AI help without leaving the terminal.
- Settings: choose providers, themes, suggestions, skills, and shortcuts.
- Skills and workflows: turn repeated terminal routines into project or personal slash commands.
- Workspace layout profiles: save a project layout, reopen it later, or share it with a team.
- con-cli and surfaces: build scripts, test runners, and external agent orchestrators on top of con.
- Screenshot gallery: a visual tour of the app.
- Release notes: what changed in each beta.
For contributors:
- Contributor quickstart: build, test, and release from source.
- Architecture: product direction and system design.
docs/impl/anddocs/study/: implementation records and research notes.
License
Credits ♥️
con depends on upstream projects we rely on directly and respect deeply:
- Ghostty for the terminal runtime and rendering foundation that powers our embedded terminal surfaces.
- GPUI from the Zed team for the native GPU UI framework we build the shell on.
- gpui-component from the Longbridge team for the component library that accelerates much of the UI layer.
- Rig for the lovely Rust agent framework behind
con's AI harness. - Phosphor Icons for the icon system used across the app.
- Flexoki for the default visual theme direction.
- Iosevka and Ioskeley Mono for the mono type foundation used in terminal chrome and code-heavy UI.
con was initially inspired by warp.dev, but is doing less than warp, if you need more, you should go for warp instead.