kettle 🫖

Kettle is a GPU-accelerated terminal for macOS and Linux. It has tabs, splits, search, session restore and themes, and it shows the pictures, diagrams, documents and videos your coding agents make right in the chat.

Native macOS window, TokyoNight Night. Capture notes.

Install

Platform	Download from the latest release	Setup
macOS 11+	kettle-macos-universal.zip	Move kettle.app to ~/Applications
Linux, glibc 2.35+	kettle-linux-*.tar.gz	Run the installer below

The Linux installer puts Kettle under ~/.local for your user and checks the release signature first. Neither package needs administrator access.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Reddimus/kettle/main/scripts/install-online.sh | sh

Installation covers Nix, older Linux systems, source builds and uninstalling. Windows packages ended with 3.3.0 (older releases).

Kettle updates itself: by default it checks the signed release feed once a day and installs a newer release for your next launch. Run kettle --check-update to check now, or set update-policy = notify (a chip in the tab bar only) or update-policy = off (no automatic network request).

Get started

1. Open Kettle from your app launcher, or run kettle.
2. Split the window with Ctrl+Shift+E (side by side) or Ctrl+Shift+O (top and bottom).
3. Open Settings with Ctrl+,.
4. Optional: add shell integration for prompt jumps and completion cards.

Kettle reloads its key = value config when you save it. kettle --write-default-config creates one, kettle --config-path finds it and kettle --check-config validates it. Configuration lists every setting.

Common keys

Action	Key
New tab	Ctrl+Shift+T
Split left or right	Ctrl+Shift+E
Split top or bottom	Ctrl+Shift+O
Focus next or previous pane	Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Shift+P
Focus the pane in a direction, Linux	Alt+Arrow
Focus the pane in a direction, macOS	Cmd+Opt+Arrow or Ctrl+Cmd+Arrow
Search	Ctrl+Shift+F
Command palette	Ctrl+Shift+K
Copy or paste	Ctrl+Shift+C or Ctrl+Shift+V
Settings	Ctrl+,

macOS also has Cmd+T, Cmd+C/V, Cmd+F and Cmd+,. Run kettle --list-keybinds for the full map, and see Getting started for more.

Agent previews

Claude Code and Codex running in a Kettle pane can show you images, SVG and Mermaid diagrams, charts and video posters as cards under their messages. Turn on Settings → Agents → Agent previews, then the previews for your agent:

• Claude Code: new panes load Kettle's plugin. No setup, no prompts.
• Codex: Kettle defines a codex shell function in new zsh and fish panes. Codex asks in its own dialog before trusting Kettle's hooks. A prompt hook supplies visual guidance. A turn-end fallback checks only the session's private visual artifact inbox, giving the agent time to show the artifact itself first. It never watches your repository.
• agy: enable agy previews, then run kettle agent-setup --agent agy --install. The native plugin supplies visual guidance and sends explicit visual artifacts to the media shelf on macOS. agy's hooks do not support Kettle's inline cards; its own Mermaid rendering remains available. Requires agy 1.4.2 or newer within 1.x.
• Any program: kettle show plot.png (or .svg, .md, .mp4, .pdf, .heic) puts a file on the pane's media shelf, and kettle show --inline prints its card right under the command. A file Kettle does not draw shows as a card you can open in its folder. kettle ctl schema prints the JSON Schema of the control API that kettle ctl drives.

Click a card to open its viewer within 90% of its split, with padding on every side. Videos fit the available space and offer a central Play button and controls below the picture, with compact white icons on a dark strip and a thin timeline in the theme accent. Hover or drag the timeline to reveal its round seek handle; narrow players keep time on a separate line. Click the video or press K to play/pause, T for a larger Theater view, and F for fullscreen. Press Esc to close or Pin to keep it beside the terminal. Video plays only on your play gesture. On Linux, sound needs FFmpeg and PulseAudio or PipeWire.

Inline cards support Codex 0.162 and newer within 0.x, and native Claude Code 2.1.280 and newer within 2.x. Support for a new major version needs a compatibility review.

Automation and MCP explains supported versions, what each setting allows, and the local control API.

Features

• Tabs, splits, multiple windows, and tabs you can drag between windows
• Centered close confirmations with Cancel focused to protect running work
• Search, bounded scrollback, broadcast input and session restore
• Inline images (kitty, iTerm2 and Sixel), file drop and pasted screenshots
• Shell-driven completion cards, recording and SSH profiles
• A bundled font and more than 500 themes, in English or Spanish
• Signed self-updates
• An optional local control API and MCP server, both off by default

Privacy

Pasting media sends a quoted local path to the pane, never the file. The control API and MCP server are off by default; once on, any process running as your user can use them, and full mode can type and run commands. Read Automation and MCP before turning them on.

Contributing

Building Kettle requires Rust 1.95 or newer and just. Linux also needs the packages listed under source builds.

git clone https://github.com/Reddimus/kettle
cd kettle
just run        # build and open Kettle
just test       # run the test suite
just gauntlet   # the checks to pass before a pull request

Contributing describes the workflow, and Testing the larger gates.

Documentation

• Getting started, Installation and Updates
• Configuration and Settings
• Shell integration, Automation and MCP and Lua plugins
• Architecture, Testing and Releasing
• Security and Changelog

License

Kettle is available under the MIT license. Third-party code, assets and design references are listed in NOTICE.