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Halopen

Halopen for Ghostty

Mac dictation that types into Ghostty, tmux and all

Halopen lands voice-typed text at the Ghostty cursor — commands, AI prompts, commit messages — verbatim, native.

Free for 14 days · macOS 14.0+ · Apple Silicon & Intel

Why this fits

Halopen, paired with Ghostty.

Halopen is a native macOS dictation app that lands voice-typed commands at the prompt in Ghostty — Mitchell Hashimoto's Zig-built terminal — across zsh, bash, fish, Nushell, tmux, screen, and SSH sessions. Hold the function key, speak the multi-flag command or the Claude Code / Aider prompt, release; the verbatim text appears at the Ghostty cursor through the macOS Accessibility API on Apple Silicon and Intel. Two craft-Mac apps running side by side.

Ghostty is the speed-first, native-Mac terminal — Mitchell Hashimoto's Zig-built terminal that idles quiet and renders fast enough that the terminal stops being the bottleneck in any workflow that touches it.

Halopen is the Mac dictation tool engineered for that disposition. Native Swift, idle-quiet, hold-to-talk, verbatim by default. The two tools share a craft sensibility: do one thing exactly right, take the resource floor seriously, leave the rest to the apps that need it. Hold the function key, speak the command or the AI prompt or the commit message, release. The text lands at the Ghostty cursor verbatim.

About Ghostty

What is Ghostty?

Ghostty is a fast, native Mac terminal written in Zig by Mitchell Hashimoto (founder of HashiCorp). Released publicly in late 2024 / early 2025; gained rapid traction with serious developers. A single self-contained native binary with first-party Apple integrations.

The workflow

How to use Halopen with Ghostty.

  1. 1

    Open Ghostty

    Halopen is already running in your menu bar; nothing to install on the Ghostty side. Ghostty respects the macOS Accessibility API, so Halopen's cursor injection works out of the box.

  2. 2

    Place the cursor in the Ghostty prompt

    Standard shell prompt. Or the prompt of an agentic CLI tool — Claude Code, Aider, Codex CLI — running inside Ghostty. Or a `cat << EOF` heredoc you started for a multi-line config.

  3. 3

    Hold the function key

    The recording pill appears. Halopen is listening. The microphone is hot only while the key is down.

  4. 4

    Speak — command, prompt, or prose

    A short shell command, a multi-clause agent prompt, or a paragraph-length commit message. Halopen handles all three.

  5. 5

    Release

    Release the hotkey, wait for the completed transcription and check the text at the intended cursor. Review it before submitting.

What matters for Ghostty

The Halopen features that earn their place.

  • Native pairing — both tools idle quiet

    Halopen is a native Mac app. Resource use depends on your hardware, recognition mode, model and other apps. Test a representative session before relying on it alongside your usual software.

  • Verbatim by default — flag names land as spoken

    For Ghostty, check names, identifiers and punctuation against your intended draft. Optional live partials are provisional and may differ from the final transcript; repeating a term does not guarantee replacement. Type or paste exact strings when needed.

  • Works with tmux running inside Ghostty

    tmux is transparent to Halopen — text lands wherever the active focus is, which means tmux panes inside Ghostty work the same as native Ghostty splits.

  • Cursor-context biasing for terminal idioms

    For Ghostty, check names, identifiers and punctuation against your intended draft. Optional live partials are provisional and may differ from the final transcript; repeating a term does not guarantee replacement. Type or paste exact strings when needed.

  • Hold-to-talk — bounded audio capture

    No wake word, no ambient listening. The microphone is hot only while the configured key is held; release stops capture immediately.

  • Free for 14 days, no credit card

    Pro is $19/mo or $179/yr for unlimited.

Try it yourself

A `claude` agent prompt dictated into Ghostty for a multi-file refactor:

Example to read aloud — not a recorded result

“"Look at apps slash web slash app slash api slash orders slash cancel-route dot ts. The cancel handler currently does a database update and then publishes the OrderCancelled event after — which means if the publish step fails, the row reflects cancellation but downstream consumers never hear about it. Refactor it so the row update and the event publish run inside a single Postgres transaction, using the existing pgClient.transaction wrapper from lib slash db dot ts. Add a regression test in the existing route test file that mocks the event-publish to throw and asserts the database row stays in the prior state. Don't change the public API of the handler, and don't introduce a new abstraction for this — just inline the transaction wrap."”

  • · Illustrative practice text, not a recorded Halopen result.
  • · Read a short section aloud, then check the inserted draft for errors.
  • · Keep exact names, numbers and formatting under your own review.

Why Halopen

The dictation tool that earns its place.

Ghostty's craft principle is "do the terminal exactly right, take the resource floor seriously". Halopen's craft principle is "do the dictation exactly right, take the resource floor seriously". The two pair the way Apple's first-party tools tend to pair — quietly, with no dependency surface, with each tool getting out of the other's way.

Halopen is a native Mac app. Resource use depends on your hardware, recognition mode, model and other apps. Test a representative session before relying on it alongside your usual software.

Halopen for Ghostty — FAQ

Questions worth answering.

How do I voice type in Ghostty on Mac?

Open Ghostty, place the cursor in the prompt, hold the function key, speak the command or prompt, release. The text lands at the Ghostty cursor verbatim. Halopen runs system-wide via the macOS Accessibility API; nothing to install on the Ghostty side, no per-terminal configuration.

Mac dictation app that works in Ghostty?

Try a short, harmless draft in the exact Ghostty field you use. Halopen is designed for standard Mac text fields; permissions, focus, Secure Input and custom widgets can affect insertion. Confirm that the text arrived and review it before submitting.

How do I dictate prompts to Claude Code or Aider running in Ghostty?

Same as any other Ghostty dictation. Open the agent in Ghostty, hold the function key, speak the multi-clause prompt as you would explain it to a senior engineer, release. The full prompt lands at the agent's prompt input verbatim, then hit return.

Does Halopen work with tmux running inside Ghostty?

Try a short, harmless draft in the exact Ghostty field you use. Halopen is designed for standard Mac text fields; permissions, focus, Secure Input and custom widgets can affect insertion. Confirm that the text arrived and review it before submitting.

Will Halopen feel as native as Ghostty itself?

Halopen is a native Mac app. Resource use depends on your hardware, recognition mode, model and other apps. Test a representative session before relying on it alongside your usual software.

Mac dictation app that handles `kubectl`, `docker`, and `git log` flag-heavy commands?

Halopen. Cursor-context biasing prefers terminal idioms; the live preview surfaces misreads on rare flag names before any text reaches the cursor. Speak the natural-language version of the command ("show me all pods in all namespaces with the api label, then filter to the ones that are not running"), then either type the command directly or pass the spoken version to an agent that translates intent to command.

How much does Halopen cost?

Halopen is free for 14 days, no credit card. Pro is $19/mo or $179/yr for unlimited words.

Power-user cheat sheet

Take Halopen with you when you work with Ghostty.

The Halopen power-user cheat sheet by email — hotkeys, the right mode for each app, dictionary tips, voice patterns for prompting. Four short notes over two weeks can follow, only if you ask for them. Unsubscribe in one click.

 

Try Halopen with Ghostty

Hold the function key. Speak.

Halopen is free for 14 days, no credit card. Open Halopen, hold the function key, and listen for what you sound like.