ShellFlow

Your terminal. In flow.

Download for Windows · Features · Shortcuts · Architecture

ShellFlow is a modern, open-source terminal for Windows. It combines the multi-pane workflow of terminal multiplexers like Terminator with the polish of a native desktop app: real shells through the Windows Pseudo Console, xterm.js rendering, nested split panes, a command palette, a folder picker for cd, Explorer integration and Hyprland-style motion — in a calm dark design.

Status: early preview (0.1). The core terminal, tabs, splits, palette, settings and installer work. See Known limitations before relying on it daily.

Download

Get the latest version from the Releases page:

File	What it is
ShellFlow-<version>-x64.msi	Installer (recommended). Per-user, no admin rights. Adds the Start menu entry, "Open ShellFlow here" in Explorer and shellflow in Win+R.
ShellFlow-<version>-x64-installer.zip	The same installer packed in a zip, for browsers or mail that block .msi downloads.
ShellFlow-<version>-win-x64-portable.zip	Portable single executable. Unzip anywhere and run ShellFlow.exe (keep that file name).
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksums to verify the downloads.

The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info → Run anyway, or verify the file against SHA256SUMS.txt first (Get-FileHash .\ShellFlow-0.1.0-x64.msi).

Features

• Real shells. PowerShell 7 or Windows PowerShell (default), Command Prompt, and Git Bash / WSL distributions when installed — all detected automatically, plus your own custom shells.
• Proper terminal emulation. xterm.js with ANSI/256/true color, Unicode 11 widths, scrollback, selection, find, bracketed paste and optional GPU (WebGL) rendering.
• Tabs and nested splits. Split right or down as deep as you like, drag dividers, move focus and resize from the keyboard. Each pane is an independent shell; layout changes never restart them.
• Folder-aware panes. Shell integration lets PowerShell, Command Prompt and Git Bash report their current folder, so a new pane opens where the selected pane is, and the status bar shows the real folder.
• cd folder picker. Type cd (optionally part of a path) and press Tab to browse folders with the arrow keys: Enter changes directory, Tab/→ opens a folder, ← goes up (all the way to the drive list), typing filters.
• One window. Launching ShellFlow again (Start menu, Win+R, Explorer) reuses the open window.
• Run as administrator. New administrator window (Ctrl+Shift+F12, the command palette, or the ⌄ menu next to +) opens an elevated ShellFlow window after the UAC prompt, with the current shell and folder. It is marked with an Administrator badge and stays separate from your normal window (Windows does not allow mixing elevated and normal shells in one window).
• Batch files. Right-click a .bat / .cmd → Run in ShellFlow, or turn on Open .bat and .cmd files with ShellFlow (Settings → General) to run them on double-click. Each script runs in its own tab, in its own folder, and the tab stays open with the exit code when it finishes (Enter runs it again). Turning the option off — or uninstalling — restores Windows' normal behavior.
• Command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P). Every action — toolbar, menus, shortcuts — goes through one command registry.
• Clean start. ShellFlow always opens with a single terminal; layouts from the previous session are not restored.
• Workspaces. Named sets of tabs and layouts you can save and switch between during a session.
• Safe by default. Confirmation before stopping running commands, multi-line paste warning, graceful process cleanup, recovery from corrupted settings, and a locked-down renderer (see Security).
• Designed for flow. Dark and light themes, four pastel accents, keyboard-first everything.
• Hyprland-style motion. Panes pop in, layouts glide into place with a soft overshoot, tabs slide like workspaces and the active pane gets a gradient border. Runs on the compositor so it never slows typing; switch to Subtle or turn animations off in Settings (Windows' animation setting is respected).

Screenshots

Command palette	cd folder picker

Settings

Keyboard shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Command palette	Ctrl+Shift+P
New tab / choose shell	Ctrl+Shift+T / Ctrl+Shift+Space
Next / previous tab	Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab (or Ctrl+PgDn / Ctrl+PgUp)
Close tab	Ctrl+F4
Split right / down	Ctrl+Shift+E / Ctrl+Shift+O (or Alt+Shift+= / Alt+Shift+-)
Close pane	Ctrl+Shift+W
Move focus between panes	Alt+Arrow, Ctrl+Shift+] / Ctrl+Shift+[
Move divider	Alt+Shift+Arrow
Copy / paste	Ctrl+Shift+C (or Ctrl+C with a selection) / Ctrl+Shift+V, Ctrl+V, Shift+Insert, right-click
Find	Ctrl+Shift+F
Font size	Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0
Settings / shortcut list	Ctrl+, / Ctrl+Shift+/
Switch workspace	Ctrl+Shift+K

Shortcuts can be changed in settings.json (keyBindings, see Configuration).

Requirements

• Windows 11 (primary target). Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or later is expected to work but is not yet verified — see Windows 10.
• Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime (preinstalled on Windows 11; ShellFlow shows a notice if it is missing).
• x64 or ARM64.

Installing

Run ShellFlow-<version>-x64.msi. It installs for the current user only (no administrator prompt) into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ShellFlow and adds:

• ShellFlow to the Start menu,
• Open ShellFlow here (new tab) and Open ShellFlow here (new pane) when right-clicking a folder, the empty space inside a folder, or a drive in Explorer. If ShellFlow is already open, the folder opens as a new tab or as a new pane in the current tab of that window — ShellFlow never opens twice. Open ShellFlow here as administrator asks for UAC confirmation and opens the folder in the administrator window (as a new tab if one is already open); .bat / .cmd files also get Run as administrator in ShellFlow. (On Windows 11 these entries are under Show more options, or Shift+right-click — the compact Windows 11 menu only accepts packaged MSIX extensions.)
• shellflow as a command for Win+R,
• an entry in Settings → Apps → Installed apps, where it can be uninstalled.

New versions upgrade in place. Uninstalling keeps your settings in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ShellFlow.

Command line

ShellFlow.exe [--new-tab | --new-pane] [-d|--directory <folder>] [-p|--profile <id>] [<folder>]
ShellFlow.exe --run <script.bat|script.cmd>
ShellFlow.exe --elevate [other options]      # ask for UAC and run them in the administrator window

For example shellflow -d C:\src -p cmd opens Command Prompt in C:\src. When ShellFlow is already running the request goes to the open window: --new-pane splits the current tab, --new-tab (or just a folder) opens a tab, and a plain shellflow brings the window to the front. Profile ids are listed in Settings → Shells (windows-powershell, pwsh, cmd, git-bash, wsl-<distro>, or your own).

Building from source

Prerequisites:

• .NET SDK 10.0 (the repo pins 10.0.100 with roll-forward in global.json)
• Windows 10 2004+ / Windows 11. Visual Studio 2022/2026 with the WinUI application development workload is optional — everything builds with the .NET CLI.
• Node.js is not required: xterm.js and its addons are vendored in src/ShellFlow.TerminalHost/Assets/terminal/vendor.

git clone https://github.com/RaulDevStack/shellflow.git ShellFlow
cd ShellFlow
dotnet build ShellFlow.slnx -p:Platform=x64
.\src\ShellFlow.App\bin\x64\Debug\net10.0-windows10.0.19041.0\win-x64\ShellFlow.exe

Use -p:Platform=ARM64 on ARM64 devices. The app is unpackaged and self-contained with respect to the Windows App SDK, so the build output runs directly.

Portable build

dotnet publish src/ShellFlow.App -c Release -r win-x64 -p:Platform=x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -p:IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract=true -o publish

This produces one self-contained ShellFlow.exe (no .NET or Windows App SDK installation needed). Keep the file name ShellFlow.exe — the Windows App SDK locates the embedded UI resources by the executable's name. Ready-made installers and portable builds are attached to every release.

Configuration

Everything lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ShellFlow (override with the SHELLFLOW_DATA_DIR environment variable):

File	Contents
settings.json	Preferences, custom shells, key-binding overrides (example below)
workspaces\*.json	Saved workspaces (tabs, split layouts, starting directories)
state.json	Last workspace, window placement
logs\	Lifecycle and error logs (never terminal input/output)

Settings are validated on load; invalid values are corrected and reported, and an unreadable file is kept aside as settings.corrupt-<timestamp>.json.

Most options are in the Settings page; a few advanced ones (custom shells, key bindings) are edited in settings.json:

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "defaultProfileId": "windows-powershell",
  "terminal": { "fontFamily": "Cascadia Mono, Consolas, monospace", "fontSize": 13, "scrollback": 10000 },
  "appearance": { "theme": "Dark", "accent": "Periwinkle", "animations": "System", "motionStyle": "Fluid" },
  "profiles": [
    { "id": "pwsh-dev", "name": "PowerShell (dev)", "executable": "pwsh.exe", "arguments": "-NoLogo",
      "startingDirectory": "%USERPROFILE%\\source", "icon": "powershell", "accent": "#A6B7FF" }
  ],
  // command id → chord; several chords separated by " | "; "" unbinds the default
  "keyBindings": { "pane.splitRight": "Ctrl+Alt+D" }
}

Showing the current directory

With Shell integration on (Settings → General, default), ShellFlow makes PowerShell, Command Prompt and Git Bash report their folder automatically: PowerShell's existing prompt function is wrapped after your profile loads, CMD's PROMPT and Git Bash's PROMPT_COMMAND get an invisible OSC 9;9 prefix. Profiles that set their own PROMPT / PROMPT_COMMAND or run their own -Command/-File are left untouched. WSL is not integrated yet.

Any other shell can report its folder with OSC 7 or OSC 9;9. To do it by hand in PowerShell (for example with integration off), add this to your profile:

function prompt {
  $loc = $executionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation
  $osc = if ($loc.Provider.Name -eq 'FileSystem') { "$([char]27)]9;9;`"$($loc.ProviderPath)`"$([char]27)\" } else { '' }
  "$osc" + "PS $loc$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "
}

New panes created by splitting inherit a reported directory.

Architecture

ShellFlow.App (WinUI 3) ──▶ ShellFlow.TerminalHost (WebView2 + xterm.js) ──▶ ShellFlow.Terminal (ConPTY)
        └───────────────────────────── ShellFlow.Core (models, layout, persistence, commands) ◀┘

• ShellFlow.Core — split-tree layout, workspace and settings models, versioned JSON persistence, shell detection, the command registry and the renderer message schema. No UI dependency.
• ShellFlow.Terminal — ConPTY sessions: process creation, a bounded output channel with backpressure, input, resizing, exit detection and graceful shutdown.
• ShellFlow.TerminalHost — one xterm.js renderer per pane in WebView2, served from a virtual host, with origin checks and strict validation of every message from the page.
• ShellFlow.App — the WinUI 3 window: tabs, split panes, command palette, cd picker, settings, single instance and Explorer integration.

Output is streamed with flow control (the renderer acknowledges what it has drawn), layout changes never recreate shells, and every action — toolbar, menu, shortcut or palette — goes through one command registry.

Security

The terminal renderer is treated as untrusted: it only loads bundled files, has no network access (strict Content Security Policy), and can only send a closed set of validated messages to native code — input for its own shell, its size, folder-picker requests and registered command ids. It cannot start processes, open URLs or read files. A second launch talks to the running window over a named pipe restricted to the current Windows user. Logs never contain terminal input, output or clipboard data.

Please report vulnerabilities privately via GitHub private vulnerability reporting.

Known limitations

• Switching to a saved workspace restores its layout with fresh shells in the saved directories; running programs are not restored.
• "Command running" detection uses the shell's process tree; work done inside the shell process itself (for example a long PowerShell pipeline without child processes) is not detected for close confirmations.
• The working directory is only known when the shell reports it (see above); WSL panes and unknown shells fall back to the folder they started in, and the cd picker then only completes absolute paths.
• Key bindings are customizable through settings.json only (the Settings UI lists them).
• Links in terminal output are not clickable yet.
• Windows 10 and ARM64 builds compile but have not been verified on real hardware.
• Each pane hosts its own WebView2 renderer (sharing one browser process); very large numbers of panes use more memory than a native renderer would.
• Some systems draw a small dash near the bottom-right corner of each pane. It is drawn above all app content (including dialogs), which points to an OS-level text-cursor overlay rather than ShellFlow's UI; under investigation.

Windows 10

ShellFlow targets Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) as its minimum because it uses ConPTY, Windows App SDK 1.8 and UISettings.AnimationsEnabledChanged. Expect differences: no Segoe Fluent Icons (falls back to Segoe MDL2 Assets), square window corners, and older ConPTY behavior on early builds. Reports from Windows 10 users are welcome.

Roadmap

• Code signing, winget manifest, and a signed MSIX for the compact Windows 11 context menu
• Clickable links (opened through the default browser with confirmation)
• Key-binding editor in Settings
• Drag-and-drop of files to paste paths
• Pane zoom (temporarily maximize a pane), broadcast input to all panes
• Per-profile colors and themes, theme import
• Shell integration helpers (prompt marks, command status)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — please read CONTRIBUTING.md. Bug reports and feature requests use the issue templates.

License

ShellFlow is released under the MIT License. It bundles xterm.js and its addons (MIT), whose notices are in src/ShellFlow.TerminalHost/Assets/terminal/vendor/THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt, and uses the Windows App SDK and WebView2 from Microsoft.