Skip to content
Back to top

# Query terminal

This kitten is used to query kitty from terminal programs about version, values of various runtime options controlling its features, etc.

The querying is done using the (semi) standard XTGETTCAP escape sequence pioneered by xterm, so it works over SSH as well. The downside is that it is slow, since it requires a roundtrip to the terminal emulator and back.

If you want to do some of the same querying in your terminal program without depending on the kitten, you can do so, by processing the same escape codes. Search this page for XTGETTCAP to see the syntax for the escape code. The kitty specific keys are all documented below, when sent via escape code they must be prefixed with `kitty-query-`.

## Source code for query_terminal

The source code for this kitten is available on GitHub.

## Command Line Interface

    kitten query_terminal [options] [query1 query2 ...]

Query the terminal this kitten is run in for various capabilities. This sends escape codes to the terminal and based on its response prints out data about supported capabilities. Note that this is a blocking operation, since it has to wait for a response from the terminal. You can control the maximum wait time via the `--wait-for` option.

The output is lines of the form:

    query: data

If a particular query is unsupported by the running kitty version, the data will be blank.

Note that when calling this from another program, be very careful not to perform any I/O on the terminal device until this kitten exits.

Available queries are:

`name`:

  Terminal name (e.g. `xterm-kitty`)

`version`:

  Terminal version (e.g. `0.44.0`)

`allow_hyperlinks`:

  The config option `allow_hyperlinks` in `kitty.conf` for allowing hyperlinks can be `yes`, `no` or `ask`

`font_family`:

  The current font’s PostScript name

`bold_font`:

  The current bold font’s PostScript name

`italic_font`:

  The current italic font’s PostScript name

`bold_italic_font`:

  The current bold-italic font’s PostScript name

`font_size`:

  The current font size in pts

`dpi_x`:

  The current DPI on the x-axis

`dpi_y`:

  The current DPI on the y-axis

`foreground`:

  The current foreground color as a 24-bit # color code

`background`:

  The current background color as a 24-bit # color code

`background_opacity`:

  The current background opacity as a number between 0 and 1

`clipboard_control`:

  The config option `clipboard_control` in `kitty.conf` for allowing reads/writes to/from the clipboard

`os_name`:

  The name of the OS the terminal is running on. kitty returns values: bsd, linux, macos, unknown

### Options

--wait-for <WAIT_FOR>

  The amount of time (in seconds) to wait for a response from the terminal, after querying it. Default: `10`