FAQ¶

What is Trinidad Head?¶

A terminal app for Windows and macOS, written from scratch in Rust. It runs your shell in a window with a glass look and a glowing rim, gives each open window its own color, and has a few features aimed at long Claude Code sessions. See the home page.

Why the name?¶

From the README: Trinidad Head is a headland on the Northern California coast, tied to the mainland by a strip of sand. The terminal is meant to tie things together the same way.

Is it free?¶

Yes. The source is on GitHub under your choice of the MIT License or the Apache License 2.0, and the downloads are on the releases page.

Does it run on Linux?¶

No. The engine and the Unix pty compile there, but there is no window, and the program prints trinidad-head: there is no window for this OS yet.

Does it have tabs or split panes?¶

No. One shell per window. Open more windows instead; each gets its own color.

Is it built on Ghostty, Alacritty or another terminal?¶

No. The early research (in docs/RESEARCH.md in the repo) looked at building on Ghostty's engine, and the project then chose to write everything from scratch. The Rust dependencies are platform bindings (Microsoft's windows crates, the objc2 crates for AppKit), libc, and unicode-width. See Credits.

Does it work with Claude Code?¶

Yes. Trinidad Head only hosts Claude Code, which is Anthropic's tool. Features aimed at it: your prompts drawn in a bubble, faint ghost suggestions drawn dim, selecting and copying inside its full-screen view, editing its prompt like a text box, dropped files typed as paths it can attach, and OSC 52 so Claude Code's own copy command reaches the system clipboard.

Does it work with local AI models?¶

It is a terminal, so any command line tool runs in it. The README recommends it for local models and pairs it with Claude Code Local, a separate project. Giving each model's window its own color is the main help.

Does it send any data over the network?¶

The only network use in the source is the self-updater running git fetch origin main on a git clone of this repo, and only if such a clone is on the machine. There is no telemetry code. Links open only when you Cmd/Ctrl+click them or pick Open Link.

Where are the settings?¶

There is one: the default glow color, in a text file. See Configuration.

How do I change the font or font size?¶

You can't without changing the code. The font list and sizes are constants (15 DIPs on Windows, 14 pt Menlo on the Mac).

Is the download signed?¶

The Mac download is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. The Windows download is not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on first launch.

Why does each Mac window show up as a separate process?¶

Each launch with open -n is its own process with its own shell. That keeps windows independent: closing or crashing one does not touch the others. They still share one Dock icon.

What happens to programs when I close a window?¶

On the Mac the shell's whole process group gets SIGHUP. On Windows the pseudo console is closed (ClosePseudoConsole). TODO-VERIFY: exactly what Windows does to child processes still running at that point has not been tested here. Sessions do not outlive the window; the old plan in docs/PLAN.md notes that this is a decision, not a missing feature.

What does the number in the Windows title mean?¶

typing delay N ms (p95 M ms) is the median and 95th percentile time from a key press to the frame that shows the echo, over the last 200 keys. It does not include the monitor's own delay. See How it works.

How can I help?¶

Report problems or ideas in GitHub issues. Per the README, contributions are dual-licensed MIT OR Apache-2.0 unless you say otherwise.