microsoft/terminal

This repository holds the source for Windows Terminal, Windows Terminal Preview, the Windows console host (conhost.exe), shared components, ColorTool and console API samples. If you want a tabbed, configurable terminal on Windows, install the released app; if you work on the console infrastructure or want to embed terminal UI pieces, the repository is the reference source.

What you get

Windows Terminal is the modern terminal application: the README lists tabs, rich text, globalization, configurability, theming and styling as the features most requested by the Windows command-line community Windows Terminal. The same repo also contains the original console host, which hosts the Windows command-line infrastructure, the Console API server, input and rendering engines, and preferences; this is the code from which the conhost.exe shipped in Windows is built The Windows Console Host. The team keeps the legacy host because its backward-compatibility goal blocked features such as tabs, Unicode text and emoji The Windows Console Host.

A practical split matters: OpenConsole.exe is a locally built conhost.exe, and Terminal uses it to talk to command-line applications through ConPTY FAQ. So "Terminal" and "Console" are not the same binary, even though they share components such as a DirectWrite-based text layout and rendering engine and a UTF-16/UTF-8 text buffer Shared Components.

Using it vs. building it

For end users, the README recommends the Microsoft Store for automatic updates, and documents manual .msixbundle installs from Releases, winget, plus unofficial Chocolatey and Scoop packages Installing and running Windows Terminal. Windows Terminal requires Windows 10 2004 (build 19041) or later. Manual installs do not auto-update, and may need the VC++ v14 Desktop Framework Package on older Windows 10 builds Via GitHub. The winget package requires a recent WinGet client to install stable Terminal 1.18 or later Via winget.

Canary is the nightly build with the newest main-branch code and is explicitly the least stable option. Its App Installer distribution auto-updates but works only on Windows 11; the Portable ZIP works on Windows 10 (19041+) and Windows 11 but never checks for or applies updates Installing Windows Terminal Canary.

Building from source is a separate workflow with heavier prerequisites: Developer Mode, PowerShell 7+, the Windows 11 (10.0.26100) SDK at version 10.0.26100.8249 or greater, Visual Studio 2026 18.6 with the C++ desktop and WinUI workloads, and the .NET Framework 4.7.2 Targeting Pack for test projects Prerequisites. A WinGet configuration file can install the default toolchain Prerequisites. A common mistake is launching the wrong project: debug the CascadiaPackage project rather than running WindowsTerminal.exe directly, and select x64 or x86 because the C++ app does not build for Any CPU Running & Debugging.

Constraints and licence

The repo is MIT-licensed. The README does not document a migration or rollback procedure for switching between Store, manual and Canary channels, so treat those as independent installations with different update behaviour rather than interchangeable upgrades. For detailed configuration and usage, the README points to the separate documentation site and docs repo Documentation.

A 2019 Hacker News thread on WSL terminal input latency includes commenters reporting tmux issues with the Microsoft terminal of that era and preferring wsltty HN discussion; this is dated, user-reported feedback about old versions, not a current evaluation.