In a previous post, I shared how I started using Ghostty, a fast, GPU-accelerated terminal - with first-class support for shaders.
This week, I took it a step further.
CRT Shader Magic
I’ve put together a few GLSL shaders that make Ghostty look like an old-school CRT terminal — complete with:
- Support for 3 retro colors:
- Amber glow
- Green phosphor
- Blue phosphor
- Subtle background glow
- Optional scanlines & flicker
They give Ghostty a soft, glowing, vintage vibe that actually makes working in the terminal feel kinda cozy.
How to Use
Getting shaders to work in Ghostty is pretty straightforward — just be aware that if something’s off, the shader won’t load and you won’t see any error messages. Here’s how I set them up on macOS:
- Clone the repo with the shader files.
- Move the shader files to ~/.config/ghostty/shaders (create the directory if it isn't there).
- In your Ghostty config file, add this line:
custom-shader = /Users/<your-username>/.config/ghostty/shaders/amber-crt.glsl
Replace with your actual macOS username.
(I found the full absolute path works more reliably than ~.) - Reload your Ghostty configuration.
You can replace amber-crt.glsl with either the green-crt.glsl or blue-crt.glsl shader for a different vibe.
Enjoy the glow!
That’s it! Enjoy your glowing, retro terminal setup. Feels like hacking in the ’80s — minus the floppy disks.
