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How To Create An Amazing Terminal Setup With Wezterm
Published: July 21, 2024
Wezterm is an awesome, fast terminal emulator written in Rust with great features that has worked great for me as an alternative to iTerm2 & Alacritty. Let’s set it up!

You can find my dotfiles here

Open The Terminal App
Open the default terminal app on macOs.

This setup is specifically for zsh (default) so make sure you are using that.

You can check by doing:


echo $0
You can change to zsh if you have it installed by doing:


chsh -s /bin/zsh
Install homebrew
Run the following command:


/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
If necessary, when prompted, enter your password here and press enter. If you haven’t installed the XCode Command Line Tools, when prompted, press enter and homebrew will install this as well.

Add To Path (Only Apple Silicon Macbooks)
After installing, add it to the path. This step shouldn’t be necessary on Intel macs.

Run the following command to add the necessary line to ~/.zprofile:


echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile
Now source ~/.zprofile by doing:


source ~/.zprofile
Install Wezterm
Now you can install wezterm:


brew install --cask wezterm
Install git
Next install git:


brew install git
Install Meslo Nerd Font
Nerd Fonts are great for showing icons in the terminal. I personally use Meslo Nerd Font, but there are others.

You can install a nerd font with homebrew. Take a look at the fonts in the hombrew casks repo: homebrew-cask

It is no longer necessary to tap the homebrew-cask-fonts repo as the fonts have been added to homebrew-cask.

Then you can install the nerd font you’d like


brew install font-meslo-lg-nerd-font
Setup Wezterm Config File
Next we’ll setup the ~/.wezterm.lua configuration file to configure Wezterm. This file is written in lua which is a really nice benefit of using Wezterm!

First create the config file:


touch ~/.wezterm.lua
Then open it with your editor of choice. I use Neovim, but you can use whatever you prefer.

To open with Neovim do:


nvim ~/.wezterm.lua
You can also open with Vim:


vim ~/.wezterm.lua
Or TextEdit:


open -a TextEdit ~/.wezterm.lua
Or VSCode:


code ~/.wezterm.lua
Add the configuration to ~/.wezterm.lua
See this for the official documentation.

Add the following configuration to this file. You can modify this to suit your needs.


-- Pull in the wezterm API
local wezterm = require("wezterm")

-- This will hold the configuration.
local config = wezterm.config_builder()

-- This is where you actually apply your config choices

config.font = wezterm.font("MesloLGS Nerd Font Mono")
config.font_size = 19

config.enable_tab_bar = false

config.window_decorations = "RESIZE"

config.window_background_opacity = 0.8
config.macos_window_background_blur = 10

-- and finally, return the configuration to wezterm
return config
Choose a colorscheme
Take a look at the available colorschemes here

Once you find one you like, you can select a colorscheme for wezterm like so (the highlighted line below):


-- Pull in the wezterm API
local wezterm = require("wezterm")

-- This will hold the configuration.
local config = wezterm.config_builder()

-- This is where you actually apply your config choices

config.color_scheme = "Batman"

config.font = wezterm.font("MesloLGS Nerd Font Mono")
config.font_size = 19

config.enable_tab_bar = false

config.window_decorations = "RESIZE"

config.window_background_opacity = 0.8
config.macos_window_background_blur = 10

-- and finally, return the configuration to wezterm
return config
Setup my coolnight theme
You can setup theme colors directly in the config file. If instead you’d like to use my coolnight theme add the following code instead:


-- Pull in the wezterm API
local wezterm = require("wezterm")

-- This will hold the configuration.
local config = wezterm.config_builder()

-- This is where you actually apply your config choices

config.font = wezterm.font("MesloLGS Nerd Font Mono")
config.font_size = 19

config.enable_tab_bar = false

config.window_decorations = "RESIZE"
config.window_background_opacity = 0.8
config.macos_window_background_blur = 10

-- my coolnight colorscheme:
config.colors = {
	foreground = "#CBE0F0",
	background = "#011423",
	cursor_bg = "#47FF9C",
	cursor_border = "#47FF9C",
	cursor_fg = "#011423",
	selection_bg = "#033259",
	selection_fg = "#CBE0F0",
	ansi = { "#214969", "#E52E2E", "#44FFB1", "#FFE073", "#0FC5ED", "#a277ff", "#24EAF7", "#24EAF7" },
	brights = { "#214969", "#E52E2E", "#44FFB1", "#FFE073", "#A277FF", "#a277ff", "#24EAF7", "#24EAF7" },
}

-- and finally, return the configuration to wezterm
return config
Save this file and go back to the command line.

Install powerlevel10k theme
Powerlevel10k is an awesome theme for zsh.

Install it like so:


brew install powerlevel10k
Then run the following:


echo "source $(brew --prefix)/share/powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k.zsh-theme" >> ~/.zshrc
This will add what you need to ~/.zshrc to enable it.

Now source ~/.zshrc:


source ~/.zshrc
The powerlevel10k configuration wizard should show up now.

If you want to open the wizard manually do: p10k configure.

Answer the prompts to make the theme look like you would like it to. For the colors of my coolnight theme to work use either lean (with the 8 colors option) or rainbow.

Save this file and go back to the command line.

Fix directory background color (only for p10k rainbow style)
If you’re using the rainbow version of powerlevel10k, I recommend you change the directory background color from blue to black.

Open ~/.p10k.zsh with your editor of choice. With Neovim it would be:


nvim ~/.p10k.zsh
And then look for POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND and change the color from 4 to 0 like so:


typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND=0
Better zsh history completion with up, down arrows
Let’s improve the history completion with the up and down arrows.

Open ~/.zshrc and add the following to the bottom of this file:


# history setup
HISTFILE=$HOME/.zhistory
SAVEHIST=1000
HISTSIZE=999
setopt share_history
setopt hist_expire_dups_first
setopt hist_ignore_dups
setopt hist_verify
This will allow zsh to save the history to a file and configure how it should do so.

Then go back to the command line and run:


cat -v
Now press on your up and down arrow keys.

Copy the codes that you get as output.

Open the ~/.zshrc file again and add the following to the bottom of this file:


# completion using arrow keys (based on history)
bindkey '^[[A' history-search-backward
bindkey '^[[B' history-search-forward
Replace ^[[A and ^[[B with the key codes you got for up and down arrow keys if they are different.

Setup zsh-autosuggestions plugin
This plugin provides some really nice auto completion functionality as you type out commands.

Install it like so:


brew install zsh-autosuggestions
Then run the following:


echo "source $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc
This will add what you need to ~/.zshrc.

Now source it:


source ~/.zshrc
Now you can use the plugin! When you get a suggestion and want to use it, use the right arrow key.

Setup zsh-syntax-highlighting
This will provide some really nice syntax highlighting as you type out commands.

Install it like so:


brew install zsh-syntax-highlighting
Then run:


echo "source $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc
This adds what you need to ~/.zshrc to enable the plugin.

Now source ~/.zshrc:


source ~/.zshrc
You should be getting the syntax highlighting now!

Install eza (better ls)
eza is a better version of ls with lots of different options.

Install it:


brew install eza
Now you can start using it!

You can create an alias for it in ~/.zshrc like so:


# ---- Eza (better ls) -----

alias ls="eza --icons=always"
Install zoxide (better cd)
zoxide is an amazing alternative to cd.

It will remember the directories you’ve visited in the past and make it really easy to navigate back to them by just typing out a portion of the name of the directory you want to visit.

Install it like so:


brew install zoxide
Then add the following to ~/.zshrc:


# ---- Zoxide (better cd) ----
eval "$(zoxide init zsh)"
If you want to keep using cd then create an alias in ~/.zshrc:


# ---- Zoxide (better cd) ----
eval "$(zoxide init zsh)"

alias cd="z"
Save and then run:


source ~/.zshrc
Now you can use z as a much smarter replacement to cd.

Setup tmux
I have a dedicated video that goes in depth as to how I setup and use tmux.

It is very useful for managing sessions in the terminal as well as different windows and panes.

Let’s install tmux:


brew install tmux
Then you’ll want to add a config for it and it should be located in ~/.tmux.conf.

You can automatically use mine with this command:


curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/josean-dev/dev-environment-files/main/.tmux.conf --output ~/.tmux.conf
Also install tpm (tmux plugin manager):


git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm
Now you can start tmux by running:


tmux
Then install the plugins I use with it by pressing CTRL-A (my prefix) followed by Shift-I.

If this doesn’t work or tmux was already running, try reloading the tmux config first:


tmux source ~/.tmux.conf
Then try pressing CTRL-A followed by Shift-I again.

For the tmux theme that I’m using to work properly, you’ll probably need to install a newer version of bash:


brew install bash
Then reload the tmux configuration by doing CTRL-A (my prefix) followed by r.

You’re Done!! 🚀