--- title: Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator | daily.dev description: Kittens are functional extensions for the Kitty terminal emulator that add powerful features directly within the terminal. Built-in kittens include an... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-kittens-with-kitty-terminal-emulator-zdvye7pmw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator | daily.dev og:description: Kittens are functional extensions for the Kitty terminal emulator that add powerful features directly within the terminal. Built-in kittens include an... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-kittens-with-kitty-terminal-emulator-zdvye7pmw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zDVye7pmw.png og:image:alt: Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator **[It's Foss](https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Kittens are functional extensions for the Kitty terminal emulator that add powerful features directly within the terminal. Built-in kittens include an interactive theme switcher, a font chooser with live preview, a file picker with gitignore support, a drop-down quick-access terminal, a GPU-accelerated desktop panel, and a diff tool with syntax highlighting and image diffs. Kittens can be mapped to keyboard shortcuts or shell aliases for faster access. Custom kittens can also be written in Python for unsupported use cases. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are kittens in the kitty terminal emulator? Kittens are functional units bundled with the kitty terminal emulator that extend its features or run as standalone programs with direct access to the running kitty instance. Kitty's default kittens are written in Go, while custom kittens can be created in Python for needs not already covered. _Developers customizing their terminal setup can browse tool deep dives like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I open a fuzzy file picker inside kitty terminal? Run the command 'kitten choose-files' to launch kitty's built-in choose-files kitten, a comprehensive file picker similar to fzf but optimized for finding and managing files. It supports selecting multiple files, respects .gitignore rules in git directories, and can trigger a save-file option for non-existent file names. _Anyone comparing terminal file-picking tools can track workflow tips like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I compare two files using kitty terminal's built-in diff tool? Run 'kitten diff file1 file2' to compare two files using kitty's built-in diff kitten, which supports side-by-side comparisons, syntax highlighting, image diffs, and recursive directory comparisons. It works as an alternative to external tools like difftastic without leaving the terminal. _Developers weighing terminal-native tools against separate utilities like difftastic can find comparisons like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Ghostty Terminal: Never Understood the Hype Until I tried it](https://daily.dev/posts/ghostty-terminal-never-understood-the-hype-until-i-tried-it-fhwfcvjbc) · It's Foss · 54 upvotes · 5 comments - [I switched to Ghostty and discovered Linux terminals could actually be fun](https://daily.dev/posts/i-switched-to-ghostty-and-discovered-linux-terminals-could-actually-be-fun-kwfmvggqr) · XDA Developers · 73 upvotes · 11 comments - [The Modern Terminals Showdown: Alacritty, Kitty, and Ghostty Comparing Alacritty, Kitty, and Ghostty for Speed, Features, and Customization](https://daily.dev/posts/the-modern-terminals-showdown-alacritty-kitty-and-ghostty-comparing-alacritty-kitty-and-ghostty-05tu6iisw) · The Miners · 17 upvotes · 4 comments - [I Finally Tried the Alacritty Terminal And It May Replace Kitty for Me](https://daily.dev/posts/i-finally-tried-the-alacritty-terminal-and-it-may-replace-kitty-for-me-lzvg4uh22) · It's Foss · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#golang](https://daily.dev/tags/golang), [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-kittens-with-kitty-terminal-emulator-zdvye7pmw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Exploring Kittens With Kitty Terminal Emulator","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-kittens-with-kitty-terminal-emulator-zdvye7pmw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-kittens-with-kitty-terminal-emulator-zdvye7pmw"},"datePublished":"2026-07-31T12:07:23.646Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:16:52.931Z","description":"Kittens are functional extensions for the Kitty terminal emulator that add powerful features directly within the terminal. 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