detect-terminal

Detect the terminal program currently being used, with support for iTerm, Terminal.app, Hyper, iTerm2, ConEmu, Cmde,r Alacritty, Xterm, Terminator, Termux, Kitty, and others. Detection is based on environment variables and process-level indicators to identify the terminal in use. This can't be done reliably in all cases, but it's useful when available.

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Install

Install with npm:

$ npm install --save detect-terminal

Usage

import detectTerminal from 'detect-terminal';
// or
import { detectTerminal } from 'detect-terminal';

console.log(detectTerminal()) //=> "iterm" (or whatever terminal you're using)

Options

import detectTerminal from 'detect-terminal';

// By default, multiplexers like tmux/screen are detected first
console.log(detectTerminal()); //=> "tmux" (if running inside tmux)

// With preferOuter: true, prefer the outermost terminal (GUI app)
console.log(detectTerminal({ preferOuter: true })); //=> "iterm" (the actual terminal app)

Supported Terminals

The following terminals are supported. Detection is based on environment variables and process-level indicators to identify the terminal in use.

• alacritty
• bash
• cmd
• conhost
• csh
• dopamine
• eterm
• fish
• foot
• ghostty
• gnome_terminal
• hyper
• iterm
• kitty
• konsole
• ksh
• linux_console
• mate_terminal
• node
• powershell
• putty
• qterminal
• rio
• rxvt
• screen
• sh
• tcsh
• terminal
• terminal_app
• terminator
• termux
• tmux
• truecolor_terminal
• vscode
• vt100
• warp
• wezterm
• windows_cmd
• windows_terminal
• xfce4_terminal
• xterm
• zsh

Note:

• Some items are shell names (like cmd, sh (Bourne Shell), bash, zsh, fish, etc.) because the code's process-title detection maps those as possible values, and the code wasn't able to find a better terminal identifier.
• The names are as returned by the detection methods (i.e., terminal_app, gnome_terminal, etc.) and not the terminal program's real executable names. This approach was takenn to avoid confusion with the actual executable names, which can vary across platforms and installations.
• Fallback/auto-generated names (using sanitized env values) are also possible in the code but are not explicitly named in the code.

Terminal Detection

Notes:

• Detection uses the TERM and TERM_PROGRAM environment variables, as well as process-level indicators such as process.title on some platforms, to identify the running terminal.
• Terminal-specific environment variables (like KITTY_PID, GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR, ALACRITTY_SOCKET) are checked first as they provide the most reliable detection.
• Variable values are normalized to provide a consistent terminal identifier, regardless of differences in capitalization or formatting.
• Some Windows terminals are detected using Windows-specific variables such as COMSPEC or WT_SESSION.
• Terminal multiplexers such as tmux and GNU Screen are identified through the TERM variable when active. Use preferOuter: true to skip multiplexer detection.
• When running inside Visual Studio Code's integrated terminal, detection relies on specific environment variables set by VS Code.
• Distinctions are maintained between terminal emulators (e.g., iTerm2, Konsole) and shells (e.g., bash, zsh), with shells excluded from the main detection table.
• In the absence of a recognized terminal, a fallback sanitizer produces a normalized identifier or unknown as a last resort.
• The detection logic is designed to cover terminals across UNIX-like systems (Linux, macOS) and Windows, providing broad compatibility for diverse development environments.

History

v2.0.0

• Added preferOuter option to prefer outermost terminal (GUI app) over multiplexers like tmux/screen
• Added Ghostty terminal detection via GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR environment variable
• Added Foot terminal detection (Wayland terminal emulator)
• Added Rio terminal detection (Rust-based GPU-accelerated terminal)
• Improved Alacritty detection with ALACRITTY_SOCKET and ALACRITTY_LOG environment variables
• Improved Kitty detection with KITTY_PID environment variable (most reliable method)
• Added Linux Console detection via TERM=linux
• Added Dopamine terminal detection
• Reordered detection priority: terminal-specific env vars are now checked before TERM_PROGRAM

v1.1.0

• Improved terminal detection accuracy with more advanced detection methods
• Added VTE_VERSION detection to properly identify GNOME Terminal when it masquerades as xterm
• Implemented environment variable scanning to detect Konsole terminals that advertise as xterm
• Enhanced COLORTERM precedence handling for better terminal identification
• Added macOS path parsing to extract application names from full paths
• Improved Android/Termux detection with TERMUX_VERSION checks
• Enhanced Windows Terminal detection with WT_SESSION prioritization and pwsh support
• Added better error handling with timeouts for shell execution
• Refined process title matching with more precise regex patterns

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About

$ npm install && npm test

$ npm install -g verbose/verb#dev verb-generate-readme && verb

Contributors

Author

Jon Schlinkert

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• LinkedIn Profile

License

Copyright © 2025, Jon Schlinkert. Released under the MIT License.

This file was generated by verb-generate-readme, v0.8.0, on December 06, 2025.