Liu — Terminal for Vibe Coding & AI Coding Agents

Liu is a native terminal for macOS and Linux built for vibe coding. It sits between you and your coding agents — Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot and more — making ten parallel agent threads feel like one place. Written in C with a Metal/OpenGL GPU renderer.

Features

  • Native macOS and Linux terminal written in C11 — no Electron, no JavaScript VM, no framework runtime
  • Metal GPU renderer on macOS, OpenGL 3.3 core elsewhere
  • Multi-tab interface with split panes (up to 32 tabs) for running coding agents in parallel
  • Agent History — browse and resume past Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cline and Gemini CLI sessions
  • Notifications when an agent finishes a task, with per-tool sound rules
  • AI-generated color themes from a plain-language prompt, plus 21 built-in themes
  • Notes Vault — a local Markdown workspace linked by wikilinks and shared with agents
  • Graph View — an interactive force-directed graph of links between Markdown files
  • Site Manager — start/stop local dev servers and preview them in an embedded WebView
  • Translate-on-Tab — rewrite prompt input into English before it reaches the agent, to save tokens
  • Built-in file browser with OSC 7 cwd tracking and a Markdown viewer
  • Full SSH client with SFTP, port forwarding and Mosh reconnection
  • Encrypted vault (SQLite + AES-256) for hosts, keys and snippets
  • Command palette with fuzzy search (Cmd+K)
  • Hand-written SIMD assembly on the hot paths (ARM64 NEON, x86-64 SSE2)

Frequently asked questions

What is the best terminal for vibe coding?

Liu is a terminal built specifically for vibe coding — the workflow where you drive one or more AI coding agents instead of typing every command yourself. It runs Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI and others side by side in split panes, keeps a browsable history of every past agent session so you can resume any of them, and notifies you when an agent finishes a task. It is written in C11 with a GPU renderer, so ten parallel agent threads stay responsive.

What is Liu Terminal?

Liu is a native terminal emulator for macOS and Linux, built around AI-assisted coding. Written in C11 with a Metal GPU renderer on macOS and OpenGL 3.3 elsewhere, it sits between you and your coding agents and makes ten parallel agent threads feel like one place.

Which AI coding agents does Liu Terminal support?

Liu reads the on-disk session stores of Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI, Cline, Roo, Kilo, Kimi, Qwen, Amp and OpenCode. For each it can list past sessions and resume one through that tool’s own native flag — for example `claude --resume <id>` or `codex -c experimental_resume="<path>"`. Any CLI agent runs in Liu as it would in any terminal; the history and resume integration is what is tool-specific.

How is Liu different from iTerm2, Warp, Ghostty or Alacritty?

Those are general-purpose terminals. Liu is organized around driving AI coding agents: Agent History browses and resumes past agent sessions across tools, notifications fire when an agent finishes, Translate-on-Tab rewrites your prompt before it reaches the agent, Site Manager runs and previews dev servers, and Notes Vault plus Graph View give agents a shared Markdown workspace. Liu is written in C11 with hand-tuned SIMD assembly on the hot paths and no web runtime.

Is Liu Terminal free?

Yes. Liu is free and open source. Builds are published on GitHub Releases for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux (ARM64 and x86-64).

What platforms does Liu Terminal run on?

macOS is the primary target and uses the Metal GPU renderer. Linux builds use OpenGL 3.3 core. Both ARM64 and x86-64 are supported on each platform.

Does Liu Terminal collect telemetry?

No. Liu runs entirely locally and collects no personal data or telemetry. Agent history is read from the session files the agent CLIs already write on your own disk; nothing is uploaded.

What language is Liu Terminal written in?

C11, with hand-written SIMD assembly on the hot paths — ARM64 NEON on Apple Silicon and x86-64 SSE2 elsewhere. There is no Electron, no JavaScript VM and no framework runtime. Dependencies are limited to libssh2, SQLite3, stb_truetype, stb_image and cJSON.

Download

Documentation

Getting started

  • Documentation — Liu Terminal documentation. Learn how to install, configure, and use the native AI-agent terminal for macOS and Linux.
  • Installation — Install Liu Terminal on macOS. Download the DMG for Apple Silicon or Intel, or install via Homebrew.
  • Quick start — Quick start guide for Liu Terminal. Get up and running with tabs, splits, sessions, and AI agents in minutes.

Guides

  • Themes — Liu Terminal themes. 21 built-in color themes plus full JSON-based custom theme support with live preview.
  • Tabs & splits — Liu Terminal tabs and split panes. Native title-bar tabs on macOS, drag to reorder, rename sessions, and split panes.
  • Sessions — Liu Terminal sessions. Full SSH client with file browser, SFTP, port forwarding, Mosh, and known-hosts TOFU.
  • File browser — Liu Terminal file browser. Sidebar tree follows your active tab cwd with OSC 7 integration and remote SFTP support.
  • Notes Vault — Liu Terminal Notes Vault. A unified local markdown workspace connected via wikilinks and shared with AI agents.
  • Site Manager — Liu Terminal Site Manager. Register local project folders, start/stop dev servers from one panel, watch live logs, and preview instantly in-app.
  • In-App Browser — Liu Terminal in-app web browser. Embedded macOS-native WebView with local server preview, element picker, and connection error Ask Agent integrations.
  • Markdown viewer — Liu Terminal markdown viewer. Render .md files in-terminal with live preview, syntax highlighting, and GitHub-style formatting.
  • Graph View — Liu Terminal Graph View. Visualize connections between your Markdown files with an interactive force-directed knowledge graph.
  • Command palette — Liu Terminal command palette. Quick access to every action, session, and setting with ⌘K fuzzy search.
  • Translate-on-Tab — Liu Terminal Translate-on-Tab. Translate prompt line input in real-time before sending it to the coding agent to save tokens.

Reference

  • Keybindings — Liu Terminal keybindings. Full keyboard shortcut reference for tabs, splits, sessions, search, and AI agents.
  • Agent History — Liu Terminal agent history. Browse and resume past AI agent sessions — Claude, Codex, Gemini, and more.
  • Notifications — Liu Terminal notifications. Get notified when AI agents finish tasks, with configurable hooks and sound alerts.
  • Configuration — Liu Terminal configuration. Customize themes, keybindings, fonts, and settings via JSON config file.

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