Tip Builds
The channel that tracks development, how to switch to it, and what to expect from it.
Note
No build has been published yet. This page describes how downloads will work so that it is accurate on the day the first release is cut, but there is nothing to download from it today.
Every tier is published on two channels. stable is the released
build. tip is built from the latest development work, so it gets
fixes and new features before a release is cut.
Running tip is genuinely useful to the project. It is how problems get found while they are still cheap to fix, and feedback on work that has not shipped yet is worth far more than feedback after the fact.
Note
Why "tip"? It is the Git term for the latest commit on a branch, which is exactly what these builds are made from. It says what it is more precisely than "nightly", which implies a schedule.
Anyone who sponsors, at any amount. Tip is not a higher tier and it
does not cost more. A Sponsor account gets the stable and tip
channels; a Pro account gets the Pro equivalents of both.
If you build from source you are already ahead of tip. The windows
branch you build from is where these builds come from.
Channel selection lives in the application, in the update popover. Pick the channel there and it takes effect from the next update check.
Your choice is remembered locally, in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Ghostty\sponsor-prefs.json, and deliberately not in
the shared configuration file, so it does not follow a config you sync
between machines or check into a dotfiles repository.
You can switch back to stable the same way. Note that going back does
not roll you backwards: you stay on the build you have until a stable
release overtakes it.
Tip builds are built and signed the same way stable builds are, and they run through the same checks. They are not a debug build or an unsigned side channel.
Warning
That said, tip is development work. A build can regress, and something that worked yesterday can break today. If you need the terminal to be predictable while you are doing something that matters, use
stable.
If you do hit a problem on tip, reporting it is the whole point. Open an issue on the repository and say which channel and version you were on.