# gPTY: a terminal built for agents to drive

> A Godot and Rust terminal that gives AI agents a real API instead of making them scrape a TUI.
- Title: gPTY: a terminal built for agents to drive · GitHub | Shortify
- Summary: A Godot and Rust terminal that gives AI agents a real API instead of making them scrape a TUI. If you want agents working in a terminal, give them a…
- Keywords: terminals, rust, godot, ai agents, mcp, technology, startups, gPTY, terminal, built, agents, drive
- Source: GitHub — https://github.com/godot-pty/gpty
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: terminals, rust, godot, ai agents, mcp, technology, startups
## A terminal agents can call
gPTY is a tiling multi-pane terminal with a JSON-RPC and MCP control surface, so automation can spawn panes, inject text, and read output without parsing a screen.

> so AI agents and automation tools can spawn panes, inject text, and observe output on terminals without scraping a TUI
## Panes in a tiling grid
Each pane is an independent shell session you can resize and arrange. Terminal, code viewer, and file tree panes live side by side in one workspace.
## Real terminal emulation
It runs alacritty_terminal for full DEC STD 070 support: 16, 256, and true color, scrollback with regex search, and selection across wrapped lines.
## Three ways in
Drive it from a CLI (gpty new-pane, gpty inject), an IPC socket, or an MCP server. Tool schemas come from the same clap definitions as the CLI, so they cannot drift.

> they cannot drift from gpty, help
## Concepts watch, never type
Regex triggers on PTY output capture replies and route them into adjacent panes like a code viewer or Inspector. They display only and never send input back to a shell.

> Concepts capture and display only - they never inject input into a shell.
## Watching agents, not running them
A Reasoning pane projects agent lifecycle events and an Inspector pane runs a private, tool-free Q&A. gPTY observes agent state and refuses to orchestrate it.

> Observability only - gpty never orchestrates agent state.
## It remembers your layout
Scrollback, settings, named workspaces, and profiles save to SQLite and JSON and come back on restart, with full-text search across every pane's history.
## Ship and run it anywhere
Standalone binaries exist for Linux, macOS, and Windows at v0.5.3, with no Godot or Rust toolchain needed. Underneath: portable-pty, the vte crate, tokio, and gdext.

> No Godot or Rust toolchain required to run.
## GPL core, free edges
gPTY is GPLv3, but section 7 exceptions keep the ecosystem open: plugins and native pane types can use any license, and your profiles and layouts carry no copyleft.

> Configuration and data files carry no copyleft.
## Key takeaway

If you want agents working in a terminal, give them a documented control protocol rather than screen scraping.