Leveraging Alacritty terminal on Windows for a seamless experience in both PowerShell and WSL2 (Updated)

Update (Sept 26, 2024): Changed –working-directory option for WSL2 setup to open shell in WSL2 home dir.

Alacritty is a Rust-coded high-performance terminal emulator known for its speed and efficiency. It stands out because of its OpenGL ES-based GPU acceleration, multi-window support, and cross-platform capabilities as it runs on Linux, BSD, macOS as well as Windows.. This makes it a flexible terminal and one of the best out there.

Setting Up Alacritty on Windows

Windows has not been a good platform for terminals for decades and left users to the likes of the default Prompt and apps like ConEmu, but since the introduction of ConPTY (available in Windows 10 version 1809 and above) a lot has changed and terminals like Alacritty are finally a possibility on Windows, too. Even Microsoft now has its take on it.

If you find yourself in the need for a terminal or wanting to replace the default choice on Windows, you can give Alacritty a chance. Installing it on the host is good to use it both with PowerShell and with the multitude of WSL2 distros you may have installed.

Coming from a Linux world I prefer installing most of my apps in userspace. scoop command-line installer makes it easier:

scoop install alacritty

Configuration

The main configuration file is alacritty.yml and allows substantial customization. For a sample configuration check the default one. For a more cross-platform setup with shared settings, refer to my dotfiles repository.

Using Alacritty with PowerShell

Configuring Alacritty to work with PowerShell can be done via the YAML config file.

An alternative is to create a shortcut in Windows and start Alacritty by passing a different configuration to it. Create the shortcut, then in Properties set target to:

C:\Users\francesco\scoop\apps\alacritty\current\alacritty.exe --config-file "C:\Users\francesco\dotfiles\gui_terminals\alacritty\alacritty_pwsh.yml" --working-directory "C:\Users\francesco"

and start in to:

C:\Users\francesco\scoop\apps\alacritty\current

You need to adapt paths to your username and config files.

Now you can now move it to Desktop, Start Menu (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu), or even to the StartUp apps folder (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp).

Using Alacritty with WSL2

To open WSL2 sessions seamlessly with Alacritty, you can make it run wsl.exe . In this case ensure it is configured correctly to launch your preferred distro running your favorite shell (in my case, zsh). Alternatively, like above, it is possible to create a Windows shortcut to streamline this process and make it work with different WSL2 distro setups.

Create the shortcut, then in Properties set target to:

C:\\Users\\francesco\\scoop\\apps\\alacritty\\current\\alacritty.exe --working-directory=\\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\home\francesco -e wsl -d <WSL_DISTRO_NAME> zsh

and start in to:

C:\Users\francesco\scoop\apps\alacritty\current

Substitute <WSL_DISTRO_NAME> with your specific WSL distribution name and change your username and config files names in paths to yours. For more details on zsh configurations, check the zsh dir in my dotfiles repo.

As above, you can move the shortcut to Desktop, Start Menu, or StartUp apps folder.

Conclusion

I use Alacritty for both Linux and PowerShell environments on Windows as it brings big performance and usability benefits. Its choice not to support splits and tabs alike removes a variable from the equation and lets you focus on your task or run your multiplexer of choice. It has been my go-to choice for some time and I like how it allows for various degrees of customizations to create a setup that best meets your workflow needs.

Thanks for reading. I hope it helps.