ghostty/dist/cmake

CMake Support for libghostty-vt

The top-level CMakeLists.txt wraps the Zig build system so that CMake projects can consume libghostty-vt without invoking zig build manually. Running cmake --build triggers zig build -Demit-lib-vt automatically.

This means downstream projects do require a working Zig compiler on PATH to build, but don't need to know any Zig-specific details.

Using FetchContent (recommended)

Add the following to your project's CMakeLists.txt:

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(ghostty
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty.git
    GIT_TAG main
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(ghostty)

add_executable(myapp main.c)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE ghostty-vt)

This fetches the Ghostty source, builds libghostty-vt via Zig during your CMake build, and links it into your target. Headers are added to the include path automatically.

Using a local checkout

If you already have the Ghostty source checked out, skip the download by pointing CMake at it:

cmake -B build -DFETCHCONTENT_SOURCE_DIR_GHOSTTY=/path/to/ghostty
cmake --build build

Using find_package (install-based)

Build and install libghostty-vt first:

cd /path/to/ghostty
cmake -B build
cmake --build build
cmake --install build --prefix /usr/local

Then in your project:

find_package(ghostty-vt REQUIRED)

add_executable(myapp main.c)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE ghostty-vt::ghostty-vt)

Cross-compilation

For cross-compiling to a different Zig target triple, use ghostty_vt_add_target() after FetchContent_MakeAvailable:

FetchContent_MakeAvailable(ghostty)
ghostty_vt_add_target(NAME linux-amd64 ZIG_TARGET x86_64-linux-gnu)

add_executable(myapp main.c)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE ghostty-vt-static-linux-amd64)

Using zig cc as the C/CXX compiler

When cross-compiling, the host C compiler can't link binaries for the target platform. GhosttyZigCompiler.cmake provides ghostty_zig_compiler() to set up zig cc as the C/CXX compiler for the cross target. It creates wrapper scripts (shell on Unix, .cmd on Windows) and configures CMAKE_C_COMPILER, CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER, and CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME.

The module is self-contained — copy it into your project (e.g. to cmake/) and include it directly. It cannot be consumed via FetchContent because it must run before project(), but FetchContent_MakeAvailable triggers project() internally:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.19)

include(cmake/GhosttyZigCompiler.cmake)
ghostty_zig_compiler(ZIG_TARGET x86_64-linux-gnu)

project(myapp LANGUAGES C CXX)

FetchContent_MakeAvailable(ghostty)
ghostty_vt_add_target(NAME linux-amd64 ZIG_TARGET x86_64-linux-gnu)

add_executable(myapp main.c)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE ghostty-vt-static-linux-amd64)

See example/c-vt-cmake-cross/ for a complete working example.