The archive · Product Ideas · Technical decision · 2025
term.everything runs real GUI apps inside the terminal with a custom Wayland compositor
A built-from-scratch Wayland compositor renders GUI windows into terminal cells, even over SSH; the Show HN drew 1,094 points and the repo 8.1k stars.
Late for Dinner Studios
What it had to solve
Developer mmulet wanted to explore the unexplored potential of custom Wayland compositors, embedding existing applications into new surfaces. The terminal was the easiest input/output to start with, and there was a nagging frustration behind it: developers keep building yet another terminal file viewer when the file viewers they already have could simply run inside the terminal.
How it works
term.everything is a Linux program that runs GUI apps inside a terminal. It is a built-from-scratch Wayland compositor that outputs windows as terminal cells rather than to a monitor, so a video player, a web browser or a game renders as text until the terminal supports images. The maker's one-line pitch - run every GUI app in the terminal, even over SSH - turns a deep systems hack into something anyone can picture.
The idea grew from a belief that custom Wayland compositors have unexplored potential for embedding existing applications, and the terminal was the easiest surface to start with: output is just UTF-8 rendered through the chafa library, and input is read from stdin. The author deliberately wrote much of the code in TypeScript using the familiar Canvas2D API to attract contributors, then rewrote the project in Go, published a beta release and documented the approach in a HowIDidIt write-up.
Announced on Hacker News on 9 September 2025, the project drew 1,094 points and 144 comments, with readers asking 'can it run Doom?', comparing it to terminal browsers such as Carbonyl, and debating how far a terminal could be pushed. The repository shows 8.1k stars, 194 forks and 107 commits, with demos of Firefox over SSH at full resolution and an entire desktop inside a VM.
Why it lands
- The concept inverts a familiar arms race: instead of building yet another terminal app, it lets people run the GUI tools they already know in the surface that is everywhere - the terminal.
- The technical ambition is the story: a from-scratch Wayland compositor is a serious build, yet the pitch is one line anyone can picture, which is why a niche tool reached the front page.
- Working over SSH makes the idea useful rather than merely clever: a developer can reach a full graphical application from a laptop that only has a terminal.
- The maker leaned into the absurd - a roadmap from 'term some things' to 'term everything!', Doom shareware, a font-rendered game inside a browser - which made the demo loop fun enough to share.
What it did
The Show HN post on 9 September 2025 drew 1,094 points and 144 comments within days; the repository shows 8.1k stars, 194 forks and 107 commits, with a roadmap that jokes 'term some things' (the current step), 'term most things', then 'term everything!'
What you can take
Put the hack in a container everyone already has: the terminal. A playful roadmap and silly demos - Doom, a desktop in a VM - made serious engineering feel like play and carried it to the front page.
Since then
The project stayed an open, community-scale beta rather than a commercial product: by the time the repository snapshot was captured it had been rewritten in Go, held 8.1k stars and 194 forks, and the roadmap still sat at step one, 'term some things'. Commenters pointed to adjacent projects like Carbonyl and awrit, while the maker argued those were attempting something different, and offered a macOS version as a possible future direction. No sales, funding or launch figures beyond the repository metrics were reported.
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