How to Use Noctty: The Beginner's Guide (Install It, Restore Your Sessions, and Drive It With the Palette)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-04T00:11:24.790Z · 9 min read min read

How to Use Noctty: The Beginner's Guide (Install It, Restore Your Sessions, and Drive It With the Palette)

This guide shows you how to use Noctty on Windows, from the first install to the palette-first workflow that makes the app feel like an extension of your hands. You will install it in one command, learn the five shortcuts that matter, set up session restore so your layout survives Patch Tuesday, and turn the SSH hosts already in your config into one-keystroke profiles.

If you come from the Mac and Linux world, the Ghostty beginner guide is the natural prequel — Noctty takes Ghostty's terminal core (parsing, fonts, rendering, input) and wraps it in a native Win32 app, taking in upstream Ghostty changes in planned merge windows after each Ghostty release. Two clarifications up front, said once: Noctty is an independent project and is not affiliated with Ghostty, and this article is about the Windows terminal app — not the Unix O_NOCTTY flag programmers pass to os.open(), which is a different thing that happens to share letters.

What is Noctty?

Noctty is a fast, native terminal for Windows whose pitch is simple: "Tabs, splits, a palette for every action, and a layout that survives Patch Tuesday. For PowerShell, cmd, Git Bash, WSL, and the SSH hosts already in your config." It is built by one person, Aman Thanvi (GitHub: amanthanvi), released under the MIT license, and it is completely free — there is no paid tier anywhere on the project.

The project used to be called winghostty and was renamed to Noctty in August 2026 after a trademark request from the Ghostty team. At the time of writing (November 3, 2026), the latest stable release is v1.3.135, published October 24, 2026, tracking upstream Ghostty 1.3.2 — Noctty versions its major.minor after Ghostty's upstream line, with the patch number marking Noctty's own releases.

How do you install Noctty on Windows?

You have four install channels, and WinGet is the one the project recommends. Every channel below is documented on the project's own site as of November 2026.

System requirements, in the project's own words: "Windows 11, and Windows 10 version 1809 or later (supported, not tested), on x64 and ARM64."

Your first-launch arc, in five steps:

1. Install with WinGet: winget install --id AmanThanvi.noctty -e.
2. Launch Noctty, press Ctrl+Shift+P, type "split", and split a pane — the palette filters as you type.
3. Press Ctrl+, to open the native settings window, change the theme, and save — then peek at %LOCALAPPDATA%\noctty\config.ghostty to see that only the keys you changed were rewritten.
4. Close Noctty completely and reopen it — your windows, tabs, and splits come back.
5. Add a host to your ~/.ssh/config and watch it appear as a Noctty profile.

What does the SmartScreen warning mean?

On first launch, Windows SmartScreen will warn you — and that is expected, said once. Noctty's releases are signed, but with a self-signed certificate rather than one from a public certificate authority, so SmartScreen cannot vouch for the publisher and warns permanently. The project's About page documents how to verify the download yourself: compare the SHA-256 checksum of the installer against the published SHA256SUMS-windows-<arch>.txt file with Get-FileHash in PowerShell, and use the signature-verification script in the repo for the full check. Do this before you click through the warning.

How do you drive everything from the command palette?

Press Ctrl+Shift+P and type — actions, tabs, panes, profiles, themes, and settings all live in one fuzzy list that remembers what you ran recently. The palette is the whole interface philosophy: learn one shortcut and you rarely need the menus. Narrow the list with a prefix: @ for tabs, ~ for profiles, % for themes, and > for actions.

Try it on a real task: press Ctrl+Shift+P, type "split down", and watch the fuzzy matcher find the split action before you finish the word. Type ~ and your SSH profiles appear; type % and the theme list appears. Everything you do this week gets faster because the palette promotes your recent picks to the top.

How does session restore survive a reboot?

Close it Friday, open it Monday — that is the project's own line, and it is the feature that sells the app. Start Noctty again, even after a reboot, and the same windows, tabs, and splits come back, each pane sitting in the folder its shell last reported, with its profile and any title you set. Programs themselves start fresh and SSH panes reopen as your default shell, which is the honest, safe behavior.

Two finer points worth knowing. A window you opened from Explorer, the jump list, or with the -e flag stays out of the saved session — transient launches do not pollute your restored layout. And if you want the old scrollback too, set the window-save-state-scrollback option: the restored output comes back as plain text, marked as restored so you never mistake it for a live session.

How do your SSH hosts become profiles?

Each named host in your ~/.ssh/config automatically becomes a Noctty profile that runs your own ssh — no proprietary protocol, no rebuilt setup, no extra agent on the server. If you already manage servers this way, your whole fleet is one palette prefix (~) away the moment Noctty launches. Most of those hosts are probably virtual private servers, so if the concept is new to you, read what is VPS hosting first — then every profile in your palette maps to a machine you rent and control.

The macOS counterpart to this lane is xtty beginner guide territory: xtty is the SSH-first macOS terminal with Keychain autofill, while Noctty is the Windows-native answer with the same "your existing config just works" respect for how you already connect. Different operating systems, same philosophy — never rivals.

What keybindings are worth learning first?

Five shortcuts cover ninety percent of the app. Everything else lives behind the palette.

The settings window deserves a sentence of its own: it is a real Windows settings window for appearance, terminal, shells, privacy, and updates, and saving rewrites only the keys you changed in %LOCALAPPDATA%\noctty\config.ghostty while leaving your comments alone. Hand-editors are not second-class citizens — edit the file in any editor and hit Ctrl+Shift+, to reload.

Noctty vs Windows Terminal: what is actually different?

The honest answer is that Noctty is a different answer to the same question. Windows Terminal is Microsoft's official, general-purpose terminal; Noctty is the Ghostty-core terminal for people who want GPU-accelerated rendering, a command palette for every action, and session restore that survives reboots — on Windows, natively. The trade is maturity: Windows Terminal is the safe default with years of polish, while Noctty is a young independent project (v1.3.x, one maintainer) that moves fast and merges upstream Ghostty releases in planned windows.

Two details tilt the comparison. First, the native settings window writes a plain-text Ghostty-format config file, so your settings are version-controllable and portable in a way a JSON settings UI rarely is. Second, privacy: Noctty ships no telemetry, and the update check is the only connection the app makes on its own.

Should you switch to Noctty?

Switch if you want Ghostty-class rendering and a palette-driven workflow on Windows and you are comfortable with a young, fast-moving project — install via WinGet, verify the checksum past SmartScreen, and give the palette one week. Stay on Windows Terminal if you need the battle-tested default or your IT department whitelists only signed-by-a-public-CA software, since the self-signed certificate will keep tripping SmartScreen. Either way, keep your ~/.ssh/config tidy: it is now the shared source of truth for both.

Sources

Every fact in this guide was verified against pages fetched on November 3, 2026: the Noctty homepage (noctty.com) for the tagline, features, install channels, SmartScreen note, and independence statement; the Noctty About page (noctty.com/why-noctty.html) for checksum and signature verification; the GitHub repository (github.com/amanthanvi/noctty) for the maker, MIT license, and winghostty-to-Noctty rename history; and the GitHub Releases API for the v1.3.135 version and its October 24, 2026 publication date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Noctty free?

Yes. Noctty is released under the MIT license and is completely free — no paid tier, no feature paywall, and no account required. The project's site lists no pricing anywhere.

Is Noctty made by the Ghostty team?

No. In the project's own words, "Noctty is an independent project and is not affiliated with Ghostty." It is built by one person, Aman Thanvi. It was formerly called winghostty and was renamed in August 2026 after a trademark request from the Ghostty team.

Does Noctty work on Windows 10?

Yes, with a caveat. The project states support for "Windows 11, and Windows 10 version 1809 or later (supported, not tested), on x64 and ARM64." Windows 11 is the tested platform; Windows 10 works but is not the primary test target.

Can I run Noctty without installing it?

Yes. Download the portable ZIP from GitHub Releases and place an empty file named noctty.portable next to the binary — Noctty then keeps everything beside itself instead of touching your user profile.

Does Noctty send telemetry?

No. Noctty ships with no telemetry; the update check is the only connection the app makes on its own. Your terminal activity never leaves your machine.