Integrated terminal
Plenty of editors have a terminal panel. Two details here are narrower than that: the shell starts in the folder of the file you are on, and when a command rewrites the file above it, the tab already knows how to handle that.
The mechanism
A pseudo-terminal running your login shell, with an environment assembled deliberately rather than inherited wholesale — and a defined answer for the moment a command in it changes the file above it.
The working directory is the directory of the file in the tab, not the project root. If that folder has gone, it falls back to the open folder, and then to your home directory. Two tabs holding files in different folders give two shells in different places.
A terminal can be started for one of the workspace’s roots rather than for a file, which is the shell you want for a build or a test run. The panel asks which you meant when there is a real choice, and lets you switch between the shells that are already running.
A file terminal ends with its tab unless you pin it. A pinned shell keeps running, and reopening that file takes it back over rather than starting a second one. A project terminal is pinned by definition.
Terminal ▸ Split Terminal (⌃⇧5) splits the panel into columns the way the editor splits into panes. A split is a second shell on the same binding — same file, same pin, ended by the same tab — started in the directory the shell it came from is currently in, which is usually the folder you just changed to.
Run a formatter and the tab updates. It does not ask, deliberately: once a terminal can write to these files, a confirmation per file would mean a dialog storm for a command you just typed yourself.
It asks — “changed on disk. This tab has unsaved changes. Reload and discard them?” — with Reload and Keep Mine. Choosing Keep Mine moves the recorded modification date forward, so it does not ask again about the same change.
The shell is started as a login shell so ~/.zprofile and friends are read. Tools installed by Homebrew or a version manager are on PATH because the shell set it up the way it always does.
TERM is xterm-256color and COLORTERM is truecolor, so programs that check before emitting 24-bit colour actually emit it.
That is the variable tools read to find out which terminal they are inside, and answering it honestly is how they adapt correctly.
The working directory only ever said which folder. This says which file, which is the thing a command-line tool usually wants.
The app can itself be launched from one of these shells. Without clearing it, an untitled tab would inherit a stale value and claim to be somebody else’s file.
OS_ACTIVITY_DT_MODE and friends are removed from the child environment, or programs launched from a development build think they are being debugged.
Studio can start CLIProxyAPI with your first terminal and stop it a few seconds after the last one closes, or when you quit. Point Claude Code or Codex at its local address and they can use the models of the other accounts you have signed in to there — a GPT or Gemini model from inside Claude Code, say. A proxy already running is used as it is and never stopped behind your back.
By default the terminal sits under the editor alone, so the folder tree and the right dock run the whole height of the window beside it. The titlebar’s layout switch, or Terminal ▸ Terminal Between Side Panels, runs it across the full width instead.
Specifics
Everything you already have, with these forced on top.
| Variable | Value and why |
|---|---|
| TERM | xterm-256color — the baseline every curses program understands. |
| COLORTERM | truecolor — what programs check before using 24-bit colour. |
| TERM_PROGRAM | Linelark — how a tool identifies its host terminal. |
| Linelark_FILE | The absolute path of the file in the tab above, or unset for an untitled one. |
| LANG | Defaulted to en_US.UTF-8 only when neither LANG nor LC_ALL is already set. |
| Working directory | The folder containing the file in the tab, falling back to the open folder, then home. |
Read from the Linelark Studio 1.19.0 source, not from its documentation. Where the two disagree, this is the one that ships.
Before you rely on it
It is a real shell, but it is a shell in a side panel, and the edition you install decides whether it exists at all.
Free, and staying free
Apple-notarized, macOS 14 and newer, Intel and Apple silicon.
Download Studio 1.19.0 8.7 MB · every version, with checksums