Noah · Indie & OSS

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[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Meet Corta — a native macOS terminal written in Swift, end to end.

I just shipped 1.0.0.

• Metal rendering + Core Text (real CJK / IME)
• Hand-written VT engine — zero third-party deps in the core
• AppKit-first: Secure Keyboard Entry, Shortcuts, Quick Terminal
• OpenSSH + SFTP + remote edit, still feels like a Mac app
• One config file. No AI bolted on. No scripting kitchen sink.

Built for people who live in the terminal on Mac — not a cross-platform port.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

No special two-stage Escape on our side.

While a CJK candidate / preedit is open, Escape goes to the input context first. The IME almost always consumes it to dismiss (unmark / empty marked text) — we never see doCommand in that case.

cancelOperation → 0x1B only runs when the IME hands Escape back as a command, which is usually when there’s nothing left to dismiss. So in practice: dismiss-first at the IME layer; forward only after that.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Meet Corta — a native macOS terminal written in Swift, end to end.

I just shipped 1.0.0.

• Metal rendering + Core Text (real CJK / IME)
• Hand-written VT engine — zero third-party deps in the core
• AppKit-first: Secure Keyboard Entry, Shortcuts, Quick Terminal
• OpenSSH + SFTP + remote edit, still feels like a Mac app
• One config file. No AI bolted on. No scripting kitchen sink.

Built for people who live in the terminal on Mac — not a cross-platform port.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Corta 1.0.1 is out — a small patch, no new features.

• Theme cursor colour actually paints now
• Config / shell-integration writes follow symlinks (dotfiles stay yours)
• Directory history writes off the render path
• First release signed into the Sparkle feed from CI

Also: last build that runs on Intel Macs. Apple silicon from 1.1.0.

https://t.co/GbwtEf6e7E
#Swift #macOS

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

What’s next, already tracked on GitHub:

1.1.0 — performance. Apple silicon only, Metal 4 as the only render backend, hot-path cleanup (frame wake, search, allocations), then housekeeping.

1.2.0 — simplification. Window + menus in code, split the pane collaborators, SFTP as its own package, Liquid Glass chrome APIs.

Milestones:
https://t.co/HPAK37sJDX
https://t.co/9lz1wbVjdf

If you want to help shape either, issues/PRs welcome.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

@ThomasNanc46829 That’s the leftover fight: candidate UI vs “same bytes as the non-IME path.”

If you ever want to poke the code (or file a repro), the repo’s open — https://t.co/gblZ4WG4py — no pressure. Or just DM me if that’s easier.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Option-as-Meta doesn’t touch bare Escape or Tab — those still have neither ⌘ nor ⌃, so they still go through the input context first.

What fights them is the candidate UI: a CJK IME window or a shell completion menu that resolves the key as a command instead of insertText. Escape comes back as cancelOperation → 0x1B; Tab / Shift-Tab as insertTab / insertBacktab → 0x09 / CSI Z. Without that forward they just vanish.

So the leftover fight isn’t Meta vs Esc/Tab — it’s composition / candidates vs “send the same bytes the non-IME path would have sent.”

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Yeah. ⌘ and ⌃ bypass the input context entirely by design, so most app shortcuts never hit that path.

What still goes through IME first is everything else — Tab/Return/arrows/Escape landed in doCommand and had to be forwarded. Option-as-Meta is another seam: once ⌥ means Meta, it also bypasses IME.

Nothing dramatic left that I know is still “eating” shortcuts day to day, but I’m sure some IME + composition edge case will surprise me. If you hit one, please file it.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Appreciate that.

What broke first: marked text was invisible. Preedit has to overlay the Metal layer — never the grid/PTY — and without a layer-backed overlay it just doesn’t show.

Next: Tab/Return/arrows getting swallowed by the input context unless you forward doCommand. Classic seam stuff.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Fair ask.

I measure keypress-to-glass inside the app (drawable present time), not just frame CPU — method + numbers are in the README/PERFORMANCE notes, including where I’m still above target.

I haven’t published a polished side-by-side vs Terminal/iTerm on “real projects” yet. For 1.0 I’m standing behind input feel + CJK/IME more than startup claims. Happy to share the harness if useful.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

@andreaskruszaki @bot I just joined Grokbot meetup at Beijing

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

If you're into native Mac apps / Swift terminals — star, open an issue, or just reply “interested” and I’ll point you to a good first task.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Corta 1.0 is out — a native macOS terminal in pure Swift (Metal, Core Text, hand-written VT, zero deps in the core).

Looking for people who care about Mac-native software:

• File issues (bugs, “went back to my old terminal”, install blockers)
• PRs welcome — docs, VT correctness, IME/Metal rough edges
• Or just star + try it and tell me what breaks

If you want to sponsor / support the work as it grows, that helps too.

Repo: https://t.co/BpiIVo4mBY
Contributing: https://t.co/QISJ7dWHaE

#swift #macos #OpenSource

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Taste call for sure. If I have to pick one: the input model. AppKit IME, marked text, Secure Keyboard Entry — that's when it stops feeling like a port and starts feeling like a Mac app.

Metal + Core Text rendering matters a lot too, but the "belongs on a Mac" moment for me is still when Chinese input just behaves.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

@mitansh_j07 Appreciate that a lot. If the "hand-written VT / zero deps" direction resonates, I'd love to have you along — happy to co-build, review PRs, or just bounce ideas. Drop an issue or ping me if you want to dig in: https://t.co/gblZ4WG4py

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Making text input + rendering feel native on macOS ate more calendar time.

Terminal state is hard, but it's a problem I could own end-to-end in Swift — parser, grid, fuzz, golden files.

The Mac-native side was the underestimated one. NSTextInputClient isn't "free": marked text has to overlay the Metal layer without ever hitting the PTY, firstRect has to track the cursor in screen space, and Tab/Return/arrows get eaten unless you forward doCommand correctly. Same story for Core Text fallback + glyph atlas under real CJK sessions.

So VT work was deep; IME/AppKit/Metal feel work was the one that kept surprising me. That's the pure-Mac bet showing up in the schedule.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

Honestly? I'm just a macOS native believer.

I really like that pure-stack feeling — Swift end to end, AppKit, Metal, Core Text — the app feels like it belongs on a Mac, not like something ported sideways.

Pulling a C VT dependency would've broken that for me. Also more practical: I own the bugs, the fuzz tests, and the "every PTY byte is hostile" model. So yeah — taste first, engineering second. Pure Swift core was the bet I wanted to live with.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

@yevloop Appreciate that. CJK/IME is unglamorous until it breaks — spent a lot of 1.0 making it feel native on Mac. Feedback welcome if anything still feels off.

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

If this sounds useful:

★ Star the repo — helps a lot at launch
↓ Try 1.0.0 (macOS 26+)
🐛 Issues / PRs welcome — docs, bugs, terminal correctness

Repo: https://t.co/BpiIVo4Urw
Download: https://t.co/11wnwsnUJW

Happy to take hard feedback from people who live in iTerm / Ghostty daily.

#Swift #macOS #OpenSource

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

@justanacco25981 @wangyafang6 @benln grok is grok，grok bot is grok bot，cursor is cursor🙈🙈🙈🙈

[Noah · Indie & OSS @NoahBuilds_]

I’m so thrilled to join the Grok Meetup Beijing today!

It was great to meet so many talented developers, exchange ideas, and learn more about what everyone is building.

A huge thank you to the xAI team, especially @wangyafang6 and @benln , for making this event possible.

Really enjoyed the conversations, the energy, and the developer community here in Beijing. Such a great experience!

@grok @bot