lex-ghostty-shaders

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lex-ghostty-shaders

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Custom GLSL shaders for the Ghostty terminal.

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# lex-ghostty-shaders

A collection of custom [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org/) terminal shaders, authored and tuned by hand.

Ghostty supports custom GLSL fragment shaders that run on the terminal's rendered output every frame. This repo collects the shaders I've built for it. Each shader is a single, self-contained `.glsl` file written in Ghostty's ShaderToy-compatible format, with tunable constants documented at the top.

## AI implementation note

All shader implementations in this project were automatically learned and improved by AI based on existing shaders found online. The primary models used are OpenAI GPT-5.5 Extra High and [ZAI GLM 5.2 Max](https://z.ai/subscribe?ic=LGCYU9JDKH).

## Shaders

| Shader           | File                                       | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Water Ripple** | [`water_ripple.glsl`](./water_ripple.glsl) | Renders the terminal behind a calm water surface. A subtle ambient undulation is always present, and each keystroke drops a "pebble" at the cursor — a damped radial wave train that expands outward and fades to calm. Faster typing keeps fresh ripples near the cursor; idle water stays still. |
| **Water Caustic** | [`water_caustic.glsl`](./water_caustic.glsl) | A lit-water caustic shimmer over the terminal, ported from [Paper Design's "Water"](https://shaders.paper.design/water). A recursive fractal-noise caustic field (zozuar's algorithm) distorts the texture lookup, a simplex-noise wave term adds slow lateral drift, and a soft highlight tint follows the caustic web. Always in motion, no cursor coupling. |
| **Neuro Noise** | [`neuro_noise.glsl`](./neuro_noise.glsl) | A glowing web of fluid lines and soft intersections as the terminal background, ported from [Paper Design's "Neuro Noise"](https://shaders.paper.design/neuro-noise). 15 rotated, time-drifting octaves (zozuar's algorithm) form the structure; the pattern paints only the empty background, so glyphs stay crisp. |

> **About the Water Ripple "stateless" design.** Ghostty custom shaders are stateless (ShaderToy format) — the GPU carries no per-frame state, and only `iChannel0` (the terminal image) plus built-in uniforms are available. This shader builds its dynamic effect purely from `iTime` and `iTimeCursorChange` (the timestamp of the most recent cursor change, which fires per keystroke and is not retriggered by cursor blink). Because only the single latest keystroke is timestamped, at most one pebble wave train is active at a time; the ambient field plus the wave train's many rings provide the "interacting ripples" feel within that constraint. See the shader's header comment for the full explanation and the list of tunable knobs.

## Requirements

- [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org/) (custom shader support ships with recent versions)

## Installation

1. Clone this repository:

```sh
   git clone https://github.com/lexrus/lex-ghostty-shaders.git
   ```

2. Copy the shader(s) you want into Ghostty's config directory:

```sh
   mkdir -p ~/.config/ghostty/shaders/
   cp lex-ghostty-shaders/water_ripple.glsl lex-ghostty-shaders/water_caustic.glsl ~/.config/ghostty/shaders/
   ```

## Enabling a shader in Ghostty

Add a `custom-shader` line to your Ghostty config file at `~/.config/ghostty/config`:

```ini
custom-shader = ./shaders/water_ripple.glsl
```

Paths are relative to the config file's location, or you can use an absolute path:

```ini
custom-shader = ~/.config/ghostty/shaders/water_ripple.glsl
```

Restart Ghostty (or reload its config) for the change to take effect. You can comment out the line with `#` to disable the shader.

### Tip: keep this repo as your shaders folder

If you'd like this repo to _be_ your Ghostty shaders directory, you can symlink it:

```sh
# Back up any existing shaders folder first, then:
ln -s "$PWD/lex-ghostty-shaders" ~/.config/ghostty/shaders
```

Then reference shaders directly:

```ini
custom-shader = ./shaders/water_ripple.glsl
```

## Tuning

Each shader exposes its parameters as clearly commented `const` values near the top of the file. For **Water Ripple**, the most useful knobs are:

| Knob                         | What it controls                                                                     |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `REFRACTION`                 | How strongly the water distorts the terminal text. Lower = more legible.             |
| `AMBIENT_STRENGTH`           | Strength of the always-on shallow-water undulation. `0` = perfectly still when idle. |
| `PEBBLE_AMP`                 | Height of the cursor-drop ripples.                                                   |
| `WAVENUMBER` / `OMEGA`       | Ring spacing and propagation speed.                                                  |
| `FRONT_SPEED`                | How fast ripples expand across the screen.                                           |
| `RIPPLE_LIFE` / `DECAY_RATE` | How long ripples persist before calming.                                             |

Edit the values in the `.glsl` file and reload Ghostty — no recompilation step is needed.

For **Water Caustic**, the most useful knobs are (defaults match the upstream "Default" preset):

| Knob          | What it controls                                                                              |
| ------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `CAUSTIC`     | Overall caustic distortion strength. Lower = more legible text.                               |
| `WAVES`       | Simplex lateral shimmer independent of the caustic web.                                       |
| `HIGHLIGHTS`  | Caustic-shaped tint brightening the surface along the web (the "wet shimmer").                |
| `LAYERING`    | Strength of the second, finer/slower caustic layer.                                           |
| `EDGES`       | How much caustic distortion concentrates near the edges vs. uniformly across the surface.     |
| `SIZE`        | Pattern scale (caustic cell size). Higher = tighter webbing.                                  |

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