Dotty

Dotty is a terminal emulator for .NET. The core is an embeddable, framework-agnostic engine, so you can drop a Dotty terminal into any .NET host.

Projects

• Dotty.Terminal — the terminal engine and host-neutral embedding API. Pure .NET, no UI dependencies.
• Dotty.Terminal.Avalonia — an Avalonia control and renderer that bind to the engine.
• Dotty.Terminal.Mcp — a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes terminal tools to MCP clients. It depends only on the engine, so any host that embeds the terminal gets MCP support.

Samples

• samples/Dotty.Avalonia — a sample Avalonia app that embeds the terminal.
• samples/Dotty.Uno — a small Uno app that hosts the framework-neutral terminal session.

Embedding

Use Dotty.Terminal when you want to host a terminal in any .NET app. It has no UI framework dependency.

using Dotty.Terminal;
using Dotty.Terminal.Hosting;

var session = new TerminalSession(new TerminalSessionOptions
{
    Size = new GridSize(80, 24),
});

session.ScreenChanged += (_, _) =>
{
    var snapshot = session.CreateSnapshot();
    // Draw snapshot cells and cursor with your UI framework.
};

session.Start();

A host binding is responsible for five small jobs:

• map framework keys and pointer events to Dotty input
• call Resize when the view size changes
• draw TerminalScreenSnapshot with the host drawing API
• bridge clipboard requests
• marshal events to the host UI thread

Dotty.Terminal.Avalonia is one example of that binding.

Prompt hints

An embedded terminal often has little width, so the default user@host dir % shell prompt wastes space. The host can ask for a shorter prompt with PromptHint:

var session = new TerminalSession(new TerminalSessionOptions
{
    Size = new GridSize(80, 24),
    PromptHint = PromptHint.DirectoryArrow, // "net10.0-desktop ❯"
});

Styles: Directory (net10.0-desktop %), DirectoryArrow (net10.0-desktop ❯, arrow turns red when the last command failed), and ParentAndDirectory (akt/net10.0-desktop %). The hint is applied after the user's own shell config loads, so aliases and PATH are untouched. It works by pointing ZDOTDIR at a generated shim that sources the user's real rc files and then sets PROMPT. Only zsh honors the hint today. Other shells keep their own prompt.

References & Inspirations

Projects that we reviewed as inspiration or references.

• XtermSharp — a VT100/xterm terminal engine for .NET.