WW Ghostty Window Management Commands | Generated by AI

Home 2026.05

Comprehensive Summary

What was built

Added two new commands to ww ghostty:

Command Description
ww ghostty list List all open Ghostty windows with ID, title, position, size
ww ghostty focus <N\|title> Scale a Ghostty window to near-full-screen by index or title substring
ww ghostty focus reset Reset all window transforms back to original size/position

Files created

Files modified

How list works

Uses CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo (CoreGraphics, no permissions needed) to enumerate on-screen Ghostty windows. Swift code runs via swift -e, parses tab-separated output, formats a table:

#      Window ID  Title                                    Position         Size
    1. [6419]  hermes                                   (220,203)        760x533
    2. [3932]  lzw@to: /mnt/data/deepseek-v4-inference  (43,177)         995x699

How focus works (final version)

Uses CGSSetWindowTransform from the SkyLight private framework. This applies a 2D affine transform to the window — scaling it up and translating it to fill the primary display (with small padding and menu bar offset). No keyboard focus is stolen; the current terminal keeps input focus.

Approaches tried and discarded

  1. CGEvent mouse click — unreliable when windows overlap (click hits the wrong window). Also requires Screen Recording permission on macOS Sequoia+.

  2. AXUIElement (Accessibility API) — returns error -25211 (“not trusted”). Requires the terminal app to be granted Accessibility permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility.

  3. AppleScript / System Events — same -25211 error without Accessibility.

  4. CGEvent keyboard (Cmd+`) — events post without error but don’t reach Ghostty (silent drop on macOS 26.5, likely Sequoia security restriction).

  5. CGSOrderWindow — didn’t crash but CGWindowList z-order didn’t update, and no way to verify visual result.

  6. SLSMoveWindow / SLSGetWindowBounds / CGSMoveWindow — all segfault on macOS 26.5. The SkyLight internal signatures have changed or require entitlements that aren’t available without SIP modification.

  7. SLSSetWindowShape — crashes (expects CGSRegionRef, not CGRect).

What works on macOS 26.5

API Status Purpose
CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo ✅ works List/enumerate windows
CGSSetWindowTransform ✅ works Scale + translate window visually
CGSOrderWindow ✅ works (no visual z-order change in CGWindowList) Raise window to front
SLSSetWindowLevel ✅ works Change window level
NSWorkspace.shared.runningApplications ✅ works Find/activate apps

Limitations of current approach

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