How To Create An Amazing Terminal Setup With Wezterm

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.

Open The Terminal App

Install homebrew

Add To Path (Only Apple Silicon Macbooks)

Install Wezterm

Install git

Install Meslo Nerd Font

Setup Wezterm Config File

Add the configuration to ~/.wezterm.lua

Choose a colorscheme

Setup my coolnight theme

Install powerlevel10k theme

Fix directory background color (only for p10k rainbow style)

Better zsh history completion with up, down arrows

Setup zsh-autosuggestions plugin

Setup zsh-syntax-highlighting

Install eza (better ls)

Install zoxide (better cd)

Setup tmux

You’re Done!! 🚀