ghostty -e trying to execute all passed arguments

[rahuliyer95]

Issue Description

When I try to open Neovim pointing to a file with ghostty -e it tries to open both Neovim and the file.

Expected Behavior

I expect nvim to open with /tmp/foo and Ghostty to not ask for confirmation to open /tmp/foo.

Actual Behavior

When I run the following command,

$ touch /tmp/foo

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e nvim /tmp/foo

I observe that Ghostty is trying to open both nvim and /tmp/foo after opening nvim with /tmp/foo.

If /tmp/foo doesn't exist then it only opens nvim.

$ rm /tmp/foo

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e nvim /tmp/foo

Based on #7032, I tried the following variants but none of them seemed to work for me.

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e 'direct: nvim /tmp/foo'
Last login: Wed Sep 24 17:51:04 on ttys002
login: foo: No such file or directory

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ghostty failed to launch the requested command:

/usr/bin/login -flp rahuliyer direct: nvim /tmp/foo

Runtime: 36 ms

Press any key to close the window.

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e 'direct: nvim' /tmp/foo

Last login: Wed Sep 24 17:51:26 on ttys002
login: direct: nvim: No such file or directory

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ghostty failed to launch the requested command:

/usr/bin/login -flp rahuliyer direct: nvim /tmp/foo

Runtime: 43 ms

Press any key to close the window.

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e direct: nvim /tmp/foo
Last login: Wed Sep 24 17:52:16 on ttys002
login: direct:: No such file or directory

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ghostty failed to launch the requested command:

/usr/bin/login -flp rahuliyer direct: nvim /tmp/foo

Runtime: 39 ms

Press any key to close the window.

Reproduction Steps

Run the following commands,

$ touch /tmp/foo

$ /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/MacOS/ghostty -e nvim /tmp/foo

Ghostty Logs

2025-09-24 18:04:39.334237-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty version=1.2.0
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334692-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334700-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] runtime=apprt.Runtime.none
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334707-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] font_backend=font.main.Backend.coretext
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334712-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334717-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] libxev default backend=kqueue
2025-09-24 18:04:39.334856-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] setlocale from env result=en_US.UTF-8
2025-09-24 18:04:39.339547-0700 0x6758e2   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:sentry] sentry envelope does not contain crash, discarding
2025-09-24 18:04:39.384484-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] reading configuration file path=/Users/rahuliyer/.config/ghostty/config
2025-09-24 18:04:39.384702-0700 0x6758e1   Error       0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] error reading optional config file, not loading err=error.FileIsEmpty path=/Users/rahuliyer/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config
2025-09-24 18:04:39.384904-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default shell source=env value=/opt/homebrew/bin/zsh
2025-09-24 18:04:40.619007-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=37
2025-09-24 18:04:40.623580-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font regular: Google Sans Code Regular Regular
2025-09-24 18:04:40.624800-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font bold: Google Sans Code Regular Bold
2025-09-24 18:04:40.625905-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font italic: Google Sans Code Italic Italic
2025-09-24 18:04:40.626968-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font bold_italic: Google Sans Code Italic Bold Italic
2025-09-24 18:04:40.632581-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] found Ghostty resources dir: /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty
2025-09-24 18:04:40.632637-0700 0x6758e1   Error       0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] shell could not be detected, no automatic shell integration will be injected
2025-09-24 18:04:40.632751-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=20
2025-09-24 18:04:40.632998-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2025-09-24 18:04:40.635336-0700 0x675925   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] started subcommand path=/usr/bin/login pid=59198
2025-09-24 18:04:40.635773-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-09-24 18:04:41.663710-0700 0x6758e1   Debug       0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:SecureInput] secure input state=true
2025-09-24 18:04:41.685412-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2025-09-24 18:04:41.685683-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-09-24 18:04:41.685970-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-09-24 18:04:41.686053-0700 0x675928   Error       0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:stream] ignoring CSI t with unimplemented parameter: ESC [  { 8, 29, 118 } t
2025-09-24 18:04:42.865511-0700 0x675928   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] pty fd closed, read thread exiting
2025-09-24 18:04:42.865642-0700 0x6758e1   Info        0x0                  59196  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=50

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.2.0

Version
  - version: 1.2.0
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS 26

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

adjust-cell-height            = 20%
font-size                     = 16
font-family                   = Google Sans Code
theme                         = TokyoNight Storm
cursor-style                  = block
cursor-style-blink            = true
focus-follows-mouse           = true
macos-option-as-alt           = true
macos-secure-input-indication = false
macos-titlebar-style          = tabs
background-opacity            = 0.90
confirm-close-surface         = false
window-height                 = 28
window-width                  = 118
window-colorspace             = display-p3
shell-integration             = zsh
shell-integration-features    = no-cursor
auto-update                   = download
keybind                       = super+f     = write_screen_file:open
keybind                       = shift+enter = text:\n
scrollback-limit              = 25_000_000
unfocused-split-opacity       = 0.7

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[hqnna]

You need to use macOS's built-in open command for this, like so:

open -na Ghostty.app -e nvim /tmp/foo

It is generally discouraged to directly call the binary on macOS and recommended to use open instead.

[rahuliyer95]

You need to use macOS's built-in open command for this, like so:

open -na Ghostty.app -e nvim /tmp/foo

It is generally discouraged to directly call the binary on macOS and recommended to use open instead.

Doesn't seem to work :(

[hqnna]

can you try wrapping the command in quotes?

$ open -a Ghostty.app -e "nvim /tmp/foo"

[rahuliyer95]

can you try wrapping the command in quotes?

$ open -a Ghostty.app -e "nvim /tmp/foo"

❯ open -na Ghostty.app -e "/opt/homebrew/bin/nvim /tmp/foo"
The file /opt/homebrew/bin/nvim /tmp/foo does not exist.

[hqnna]

Okay yeah, i feel like this should work without the quotes then... does this work normally on other terminals (i.e. iterm2, etc)?

[rahuliyer95]

I haven't tried and to be honest I don't even know if other terminals support this? I used to use Kitty and have switched 100% to Ghostty since it launched.

[rahuliyer95]

Is this a regression from #7032 or #7044?

[rahuliyer95]

The issue persists with version 1.2.1

[rhodes-b]

Im pretty sure you can't use the cli like that

What does

open -na Ghostty.app --args -e nvim /tmp/foo

Do

I see this was suggested slightly above i thought --args is important though

Yeah look at https://ss64.com/mac/open.html

It has a -e flag it definitely wasn't ghostty getting it

[rahuliyer95]

1. When /tmp/foo exists

2. When /tmp/foo doesn't exist

Im pretty sure you can't use the cli like that

I was asking this in follow up to #2633 and #7032

[rahuliyer95]

@hqnna / @rhodes-b any more advice on this? Should this be converted to an issue?

[rhodes-b]

It can be converted to an issue if someone else on macos can reproduce it. I cannot reproduce this problem on linux.

You might be missing some macos system settings to give ghostty permission to access everything on the filesystem.