GPU-fast, idle-quiet
A wgpu renderer that draws only when something changes — an <80ms cold-start target, ~80MB at rest, and a cursor that glides while it moves but costs nothing when you're reading.
v1.11.36 — Claude on the Perch
Terminal You Will Love.
toowl · pronounced /tuːl/ — like “tool”. The owl is just here for moral support.
A GPU-accelerated terminal emulator and a tmux-style remote client in one binary — daemon-backed workspaces and Claude on the Perch.
$ curl -fsSL https://toowl.dev/install.sh | sh Free to use. Linux · macOS · Windows coming soon.
toowl is pronounced like the word "tool", and rhymes with "cool".
Watch the tour 90-second walkthrough — coming soon
<80ms
Cold start
First-frame target on Apple Silicon
~80MB
Idle memory
No always-on redraw
60fps
Smooth-glide cursor
While in motion; 0fps when idle
1 binary
GUI + TUI
Auto-detects desktop vs headless
37
Focused crates
No cycles, edition 2024
16
Built-in themes
Plus your own in config.toml
First feather on the Perch
Claude on the Perch.
Open the Perch (cmd-B). The Claude Feather is already there — your Claude Code sessions, resumable, crash-recoverable, palette-integrated. No setup, no detour through a browser. (Bring your own claude binary; the Feather handles the rest.)
- Resume any session Every Claude Code conversation in this directory shows on the Perch, one click away.
- Crash recovery, built in When Claude goes down mid-task, the Feather detects it and offers a one-key restart. Your context survives.
- Palette-integrated Cmd-Shift-P opens Claude commands alongside terminal actions. One muscle memory, two superpowers.
The Claude Feather is built on toowl's first-party
toowl-plugin-agent. Shipped, tested, in this binary.
The Perch, the crash banner and palette integration — all shipped today.
Breakthroughs, not bullet points
The handful of things toowl does that no other terminal puts in one binary.
Daemon-backed workspaces
Named workspaces are owned by toowld, not the window. Close the window to detach; reopen to reattach — sessions keep running. Local or remote, same UI with an @host badge.
Two clients, one binary
The same binary is a GPU desktop app on your laptop and a tmux-style crossterm client over SSH — talking to the daemon over a Unix socket, SSH-stdio, or WebSocket.
Claude on the Perch
Open the sidebar and the Claude Feather is already there: your Claude Code sessions, resumable and crash-recoverable, integrated into the command palette. No browser detour.
Why toowl?
A terminal that respects your taste — and your CPU.
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Native speed
GPU-accelerated wgpu renderer that draws only when something changes. Zero input latency you can feel.
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Beautiful by default
Toowl Sepia out of the box. Smooth-glide cursor, translucent window, ligatures, color emoji.
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The Claude Feather
Sessions, crash recovery, and palette integration, all built in. Bring your own claude binary — the Feather handles the rest.
-
Feathers ecosystem
Extensions are 'feathers'. In-process or subprocess, capability-gated, hot-installable. Build your own; publish to the Aviary (soon).
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Cross-platform
Linux and macOS today. Windows coming soon. One binary, same experience.
-
One binary
GUI and TUI in a single executable. No runtime, no daemon to babysit, no install ceremony.
One daemon. Every client.
Your sessions live in toowld, not the window. Attach from
the desktop app, a tmux-style TUI over SSH, or a browser — local or
across the world, same UI.
Install your way
Two paths, same outcome. Pick the one your environment already loves.
$ curl -fsSL https://toowl.dev/install.sh | sh Detects your OS + arch, downloads the matching binary from GitHub Releases, verifies the SHA256, installs to ~/.toowl/bin/toowl. ~5 seconds on a fresh machine.
$ brew install 1martianway/tap/toowl Installs from toowl's Homebrew tap. Auto-updates via brew upgrade. Use this if you already manage tools with brew.
Supported on
Pre-built binaries ship for Linux (x86_64 + aarch64) and a universal macOS build, with every release. Windows is next — email us to hear when it lands.
macOS
Linux
Windows
How toowl compares
Plenty of terminals are fast. toowl is the one that also hands you a daemon, a remote TUI, a plugin ecosystem, and Claude — in one binary.
| Feature | toowl | iTerm2 | Kitty | WezTerm | Ghostty | Alacritty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU-accelerated rendering | ||||||
| Daemon-backed named workspaces (detach/reattach) | ||||||
| tmux-style TUI client in the same binary | ||||||
| Remote daemons over SSH / WebSocket | ||||||
| Plugin / extension system | ||||||
| Built-in AI / Claude Code integration | ||||||
| Open a session in the browser | ||||||
| macOS · Linux · Windows | macOS |
Compiled from each project's public docs, mid-2026. "Partial" means a related capability exists in a different shape — e.g. tmux integration, a config-side scripting hook, or a separate companion tool. Corrections welcome on GitHub.
Ready to give your terminal a glow-up?
It takes one command. We'll wait.
$ curl -fsSL https://toowl.dev/install.sh | sh