# mintty

The Cygwin Terminal – terminal emulator for Cygwin, MSYS, and WSL

Repository: https://github.com/mintty/mintty
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mintty
Homepage: http://mintty.github.io/
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-08-26T17:20:32+00:00
Link (homepage): http://mintty.github.io/

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 91/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 75, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4108, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 86, "gap_med": 90, "n_releases_24m": 8}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1779, forks 199 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:35.307182+00:00)

## What it is
Mintty is a lightweight terminal emulator for Windows, originally built for Cygwin/MSYS2 and also usable with WSL via the wsltty packaging. It provides xterm-compatible emulation with extensive Unicode, color, font, and graphics (Sixel/ReGIS) support.

## Use cases
- run a Linux shell on Windows via WSL with a proper terminal
- terminal emulator for Cygwin or MSYS2
- xterm-compatible terminal with true color and emoji support
- open WSL terminals from Explorer context menu
- display Sixel or ReGIS graphics in the terminal
- bidirectional text and Arabic shaping in a terminal

## When to choose
- you want a fast, native Windows terminal for Cygwin, MSYS2, or WSL
- you need strong Unicode, bidi, emoji, and terminal graphics support
- you prefer a lightweight single-window terminal over Windows Terminal

## When to avoid
- you want a GPU-accelerated terminal with tabs and panes like Windows Terminal or Alacritty
- you need a terminal on Linux or macOS
- you rely on conpty features that require patching Windows conhost

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: terminal-ui, developer-tools, cli
- domain: developer-tools, windows
- platform: windows, cli
- tags: terminal-emulator, wsl, cygwin, msys2, xterm-compatible, unicode, sixel-graphics, command-line, desktop

## Member repositories
- mintty/mintty (main) score 91
- mintty/wsltty (plugin) score 50

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:35.307182+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:24:53.788690+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mintty/mintty (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:35.307182+00:00, sha b82a9efdddfe)
  - homepage: http://mintty.github.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T09:38:34.810002+00:00, sha 6fe9640134fe)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.