Files
ghostty/dist/cmake
Mitchell Hashimoto 01401ef675 build: fix Windows static lib linking with MSVC
Three issues when linking the static library with the MSVC linker:

Use the LLVM backend on Windows to produce valid COFF objects.
The self-hosted backend generates compiler_rt objects with invalid
COMDAT sections that the MSVC linker rejects (LNK1143).

Disable bundling ubsan_rt on Windows. Zig's ubsan runtime emits
/exclude-symbols linker directives that MSVC does not understand
(LNK4229).

Add ntdll and kernel32 as transitive link dependencies for the
static library on Windows. The Zig standard library uses NT API
functions (NtClose, NtCreateSection, etc.) that consumers must
link.
2026-03-23 11:31:41 -07:00
..

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.

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)

Files

  • ghostty-vt-config.cmake.in — template for the CMake package config file installed alongside the library, enabling find_package() support.

Example

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