Prerelease Builds

If you're comfortable with running prerelease software, you can help test the latest features and get the most recent bug fixes by running prerelease builds of Ghostty. This helps the project significantly by providing feedback on new features and addressing possible issues before they are released to the public.

Note

During the private beta period of Ghostty, testers daily drove prerelease builds using this same process. Many didn't have a single issue for months or even over a year. The prerelease builds are generally stable, but users should always be prepared for the possibility of stability issues.

An overview of how to install prerelease builds is provided below with more details in the sections following the table.

Platform	Description
macOS	auto-update-channel to get the latest prerelease builds
Nix	Standard flake.nix in the Ghostty repository
Linux	Build from source

For macOS, the Ghostty project provides signed and notarized builds for the latest commit on the main branch. These are available via GitHub Releases but also via the standard macOS auto-update mechanism.

If you are on a release build, you can switch to the prerelease channel by setting auto-update-channel to tip.

auto-update-channel = tip

Tip

Don't forget to restart Ghostty after changing the auto-update-channel setting! This setting does not take effect until Ghostty is restarted.

Warning

While you can set this setting back to stable at any time, this will only take effect when a later stable release is available. If you want to downgrade back to the previous stable release, you must re-download Ghostty.

Note

Why is this setting called "tip"? The term "tip" is a common term to refer to the latest commit on a branch in Git. Since we build prerelease builds from the latest commit on the main branch, we use the term "tip" to refer to the latest prerelease build rather than something like "nightly".

You can also install prerelease builds using Homebrew using the @tip version.

brew install --cask ghostty@tip

Warning

This is community-maintained. The auto-update-channel setting is an official distribution channel.

For Nix users on Linux, there is a standard flake.nix in the Ghostty repository. Follow the same instructions as the Nix Flake section on the building from source page.

Note

The package in the flake only supports Linux. Building macOS app bundles is not well supported by Nix, so the package in the flake only supports Linux. If you want to contribute a macOS package to the flake, feel free to make a pull request!