horizon

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Why Horizon?

Tabbed terminals hide your work. Tiled terminals box you in. Horizon gives you a canvas — an infinite 2D surface where every terminal lives as a panel you can place, resize, and group however you want.

Think of it as a whiteboard for your terminal sessions with a structured workflow on top. Start with color-coded workspaces, launch preset panels, jump with Quick Nav, and fit the active workspace whenever you want a clean overview.

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Highlights

Infinite Canvas

Pan and zoom freely across a boundless workspace surface. Place terminals anywhere. A minimap in the corner keeps you oriented — click it to jump.

Workspaces

Group related panels into color-coded workspaces. Auto-arrange with three layout modes — rows, columns, grid — or drag panels freely.

Full Terminal Emulation

24-bit color, mouse reporting, scrollback, alt-screen, and Kitty keyboard protocol. Powered by the Alacritty terminal engine — the same one behind the fastest terminal on the planet.

AI Agent Panels

First-class Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, and KiloCode integration. Session persistence and resume work where the underlying agent CLI supports it. A live usage dashboard tracks token spend across agents.

Git Integration

A built-in git status panel watches your repo in the background. See changed files, inline diffs, and hunk-level detail — no context switching.

Smart Detection

Ctrl+click a URL to open it. Hover a file path and click to jump to it. Horizon sees what your terminal prints and makes it interactive.

Remote Hosts

Ctrl+Shift+H opens a fast overlay that discovers hosts from SSH config and Tailscale. Search, filter, and connect instantly. Type user@filter to override the SSH user. Connected sessions are grouped into a Remote Sessions grid workspace.

Live Settings Editor

Open the config with Ctrl+Shift+, — a side panel with YAML syntax highlighting and live preview. Toggle between light and dark themes or follow the system; every change applies instantly to the canvas behind it.

Session Persistence

Close Horizon, come back tomorrow. Your workspaces, panel positions, scroll positions, and terminal history are restored exactly as you left them.

Markdown Editor

Drop a .md file onto the canvas or create one from the command palette. Split view with syntax highlighting and live preview, saved with Ctrl+Shift+S.

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Install

Download (fastest)

Grab the latest release from Releases — no dependencies needed.

Platform	Raw binary	Surge installer
Linux x64	horizon-linux-x64.tar.gz	horizon-installer-linux-x64.bin	Extract and run, or use the installer for managed stable updates
macOS arm64	horizon-osx-arm64.tar.gz	horizon-installer-osx-arm64.bin	Extract and run, or use the installer for managed stable updates
macOS x64	horizon-osx-x64.tar.gz	horizon-installer-osx-x64.bin	Extract and run, or use the installer for managed stable updates
Windows x64	horizon-windows-x64.exe	horizon-installer-win-x64.exe	Run the raw binary directly, or use the installer for managed stable updates

Homebrew and other package-manager installs keep using the package manager's own upgrade flow. Horizon only offers the in-app update prompt for installs created by the Surge installer.

Homebrew

Stable releases are available through the peters/horizon tap on macOS and Linux x64:

brew install peters/horizon/horizon

If you prefer to add the tap explicitly first:

brew tap peters/horizon
brew install horizon

To update or remove it later:

brew upgrade horizon
brew uninstall horizon
brew untap peters/horizon

WinGet

Stable releases are submitted to the official Windows Package Manager catalog. After a release's manifest PR is approved, install, upgrade, or remove Horizon with:

winget install Peters.Horizon
winget upgrade Peters.Horizon
winget uninstall Peters.Horizon

Snap

Stable releases are also published to the Snap Store on Linux x64 as a classic snap:

sudo snap install horizon-ui --classic
snap refresh horizon-ui
snap remove horizon-ui

Classic confinement is intentional. Horizon launches host shells and host tools such as ssh, git, xdg-open, pgrep, lsof, and optional tailscale helpers, so a strict sandbox would compromise core workflows.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/peters/horizon.git
cd horizon
git lfs install
git lfs pull
cargo run --release

Requires Git LFS for bundled assets and Rust 1.88+. Linux needs system headers for GPU rendering — see AGENTS.md for per-distro install commands.

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Quick Tour

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most app shortcuts use Ctrl+Shift to avoid conflicts with shell programs (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+K, Ctrl+B, etc.) and OS-level bindings. Canvas zoom keeps the standard Ctrl/Cmd+0, Ctrl/Cmd+Plus, and Ctrl/Cmd+Minus bindings. They are configurable through the shortcuts: block in your config file and editable from the built-in settings panel. Duplicate or overlapping bindings are rejected, including near-conflicts such as Ctrl+B and Ctrl+Shift+B.

Shortcut	What it does
Ctrl+Shift+K	Quick-navigate to any workspace
Ctrl+Shift+N	New terminal panel
Ctrl+Shift+W	Focus the active workspace at the current zoom
Ctrl+Shift+9	Fit the active workspace into view
Ctrl+Shift+H	Open Remote Hosts overlay
Ctrl+Shift+J	Open the sessions picker
Ctrl+Shift+B	Toggle sidebar
Ctrl+Shift+U	Toggle HUD
Ctrl+Shift+M	Toggle minimap
Ctrl+Shift+A	Align visible attached workspaces into a horizontal row
Ctrl+Shift+,	Open settings editor
Ctrl+Shift+F	Focus the terminal search bar
Ctrl+0	Reset canvas zoom to 100%
Ctrl+Plus	Zoom canvas in
Ctrl+Minus	Zoom canvas out
F11	Fullscreen the active panel
Escape	Exit active panel fullscreen
Ctrl+Shift+F11	Toggle window fullscreen
Ctrl+Shift+S	Save the active Markdown editor
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy the current terminal selection
Ctrl+Shift+V	Paste into the focused terminal
Ctrl+Shift+R	Reconnect the focused disconnected SSH panel

Structured Workflow

If you do not want to start by dragging panels around the canvas, use Horizon like this:

1. Create a workspace from the toolbar or with Ctrl+double-click on the canvas.
2. Add a terminal from your first preset with Ctrl+Shift+N.
3. Jump between workspaces with Quick Nav using Ctrl+Shift+K.
4. Use Ctrl+Shift+W to refocus the current workspace or Ctrl+Shift+9 to fit it into view.
5. Use the workspace header controls for Rows, Cols, or Grid when you want a structured layout without leaving the canvas.

Mouse Actions

Interaction	What it does
Middle-mouse drag	Pan the canvas
Space + Left-click drag	Pan the canvas
Minimap click-and-drag	Jump to that area of the canvas
Ctrl+Scroll	Zoom around the cursor
Ctrl+Click	Open URL or file path under cursor
Ctrl+double-click canvas	Create a new workspace
Ctrl+double-click inside a workspace	Add a new terminal

On macOS, substitute Cmd for Ctrl. Copy and paste use the standard Cmd+C / Cmd+V bindings, and on Windows you can also use Ctrl+Insert / Shift+Insert. The SSH reconnect shortcut is contextual and is disabled if another global shortcut overlaps with Ctrl+Shift+R.

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Configuration

The settings editor writes back to the same config file Horizon loaded. By default that is ~/.horizon/config.yaml, and config.yml is also supported when discovered or passed explicitly. You can define workspaces, panel presets, feature flags, and keyboard shortcuts:

appearance:
  theme: auto # auto, light, or dark

shortcuts:
  command_palette: Ctrl+Shift+K
  new_terminal: Ctrl+Shift+N
  focus_active_workspace: Ctrl+Shift+W
  fit_active_workspace: Ctrl+Shift+9
  open_remote_hosts: Ctrl+Shift+H
  toggle_sidebar: Ctrl+Shift+B
  toggle_hud: Ctrl+Shift+U
  toggle_minimap: Ctrl+Shift+M
  align_workspaces_horizontally: Ctrl+Shift+A
  toggle_settings: Ctrl+Shift+Comma
  zoom_reset: Ctrl+0
  zoom_in: Ctrl+Plus
  zoom_out: Ctrl+Minus
  fullscreen_panel: F11
  exit_fullscreen_panel: Escape
  fullscreen_window: Ctrl+Shift+F11
  save_editor: Ctrl+Shift+S
  search: Ctrl+Shift+F

workspaces:
  - name: Backend
    cwd: ~/projects/api
    panels:
      - kind: shell
      - kind: claude
      - kind: open_code
      - kind: git_changes

  - name: Frontend
    cwd: ~/projects/web
    panels:
      - kind: shell
      - kind: shell

presets:
  - name: Shell
    alias: sh
    kind: shell
  - name: Claude Code
    alias: cc
    kind: claude
  - name: OpenCode
    alias: oc
    kind: open_code
  - name: Gemini CLI
    alias: gm
    kind: gemini
  - name: KiloCode
    alias: kc
    kind: kilo_code
  - name: Git Changes
    alias: gc
    kind: git_changes

# Optional: disable the default attention feed
features:
  attention_feed: false

Use key names like Plus, Minus, Comma, Escape, and F11 in YAML instead of punctuation-only shortcut components such as Ctrl++.

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Speech Input (opt-in)

Dictate straight into a terminal: every terminal-backed panel's title bar gets a mic button (Editor, Git Changes, and Usage panels have no PTY, so they get none), and a Ventrilo-style push-to-talk hotkey (default F9, hold to record) dictates into the focused panel. Audio is transcribed locally by transcribe.cpp — nothing leaves the machine — and the text is inserted as if typed.

It is a compile-time opt-in because it builds a native C++ inference library. The dependency comes from crates.io with the C++ sources vendored inside (no git submodules); you need CMake and a C++ compiler, plus on Linux the ALSA headers for microphone capture (pkg-config and libasound2-dev on Debian/Ubuntu, alsa-lib-devel on Fedora):

cargo speech          # alias for: cargo run --release --features speech  (CPU inference; Metal on macOS)
cargo speech-cuda     # NVIDIA GPU inference (needs the CUDA toolkit)
cargo speech-vulkan   # any GPU via Vulkan (needs the Vulkan SDK to build)

When a GPU backend is compiled in (Metal ships automatically in plain speech on macOS), the auto backend probes discrete GPUs first and always falls back to CPU; a CPU-only build simply runs on CPU.

features:
  speech:
    enabled: true
    model: /path/to/models/whisper-large-v3-Q8_0.gguf  # any transcribe.cpp GGUF
    language: "no"       # ISO hint; "auto" detects. Supported set = the model's GGUF metadata
    task: transcribe     # translate = speak any language, insert English text
    backend: auto        # auto | cpu | cuda | vulkan | metal
    input_device: ""     # microphone name (exact or substring, e.g. "NT-USB"); "" = system default
    hotkey: "F9"         # push-to-talk; same syntax as the shortcuts table, "" disables
    hotkey_mode: hold    # hold (Ventrilo-style) | toggle
    preload: false       # true = load the model at startup; first dictation becomes instant

The push-to-talk hotkey listens in the main window (it targets the focused panel there); panels in detached windows can still dictate via their title-bar mic button.

Recommended models (prebuilt GGUFs under handy-computer on Hugging Face): whisper-large-v3-turbo (fast multilingual), whisper-large-v3 (multilingual with a working translate task), parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 (fast, 25 European languages), and for Norwegian — including dialects — NB-Whisper Large converted per the transcribe.cpp docs. A model's supported languages are read from its GGUF metadata at load time.

Settings → General → Features → Speech Input exposes all of this with a model-aware UI: the spoken-language list and translation targets are read from the model's own GGUF metadata, the push-to-talk key is rebindable by pressing it, the microphone is picked from the devices the audio host reports (machines with several — webcam, USB mic — often default to the wrong one), the actually-selected backend is shown next to auto, and saved changes apply live — no restart.

Dictation outcomes that would otherwise be invisible are surfaced as a transient message: a tap too short to transcribe, a recording in which no speech was detected (named with the microphone it came from), a push-to-talk press while the previous dictation is still processing, and speech errors.

Speech profiles: one key per language

For switching languages without touching settings, define profiles — each with its own model, language, output, and push-to-talk key. The key is the language (Ventrilo-style channel binds): hold F1 to dictate Norwegian, F2 for English, F3 to speak Norwegian and insert English. Each profile's model loads lazily on first use and then stays warm; set preload: true on a profile to load it at startup instead, so its first dictation is instant (the model's memory is resident from launch — budget accordingly).

features:
  speech:
    enabled: true
    backend: auto
    hotkey_mode: hold
    profiles:
      - name: Norsk
        model: ~/models/nb-whisper-large-Q8_0.gguf
        language: "no"
        task: transcribe
        hotkey: F1
        preload: true    # optional: load at startup for an instant first dictation
      - name: English
        model: ~/models/whisper-large-v3-Q8_0.gguf
        language: en
        task: transcribe
        hotkey: F2
      - name: NO→EN
        model: ~/models/whisper-large-v3-Q8_0.gguf
        language: "no"
        task: translate
        target_language: en
        hotkey: F3

Profile hotkeys are validated against each other and against every global shortcut. The mic button uses the last-used profile; with no profiles: list, the flat model/language/hotkey fields act as a single profile as before.

Norwegian dictation (NB-Whisper)

For Norwegian — including dialects — the strongest model is NB-Whisper Large, a Whisper fine-tune by the National Library of Norway (NbAiLab/nb-whisper-large, trained on ~20 000 hours of Norwegian speech). It is not distributed as a GGUF, so convert it once with transcribe.cpp (community whisper fine-tunes convert like the stock checkpoints; NbAiLab ships sharded safetensors that must be merged into a single model.safetensors first), quantize to Q8_0, then:

features:
  speech:
    enabled: true
    model: /path/to/nb-whisper-large-Q8_0.gguf
    language: "no"        # bokmål output; "nn" for nynorsk
    task: transcribe

Two NB-Whisper quirks worth knowing: it normalizes dialect speech into standard written Norwegian rather than transcribing verbatim (usually what you want), and it ignores the translate task — for spoken-Norwegian → English text, point the model at stock whisper-large-v3 (prebuilt GGUF under handy-computer) and set Output to Translate to en.

For agents — when a user asks for speech support: build with the right feature for the machine's GPU (speech-cuda for NVIDIA, speech on macOS, speech-vulkan otherwise), download a model GGUF, fill in features.speech in ~/.horizon/config.yaml (or via Settings), and verify the mic button appears on terminal panel title bars.

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Built With

Rust	Edition 2024, safe and fast
eframe / egui	Immediate-mode UI framework
wgpu	GPU rendering — Vulkan, Metal, DX12, OpenGL
alacritty_terminal	Battle-tested terminal emulation
Catppuccin	Terminal palettes (Mocha dark / Latte light) on a warm editorial UI chrome

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Contributing

See AGENTS.md for development setup, architecture, coding standards, and CI requirements. Release instructions live in docs/release-flow.md. Manual smoke-test plans live under docs/testing, including the workspace close smoke test.

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo test --workspace
cargo clippy --all-targets --features speech,trace-profiling -- -D warnings

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