Contour 0.8 Terminal Emulator: Command Blocks, Output Folding and Faster Rendering
Contour 0.8 turns your terminal into something closer to a notebook: every command becomes a block with its own status, duration and collapsible output.
Contour is a cross-platform terminal emulator written in C++ on Qt 6, with GPU-accelerated rendering for smooth output and high-DPI displays. Version 0.8 adds interactive command blocks, output folding, clickable URLs and file paths, a graphical search bar, much higher throughput in the developers’ benchmarks, and broader shell integration. If you spend your day in logs, builds and SSH sessions, this release is aimed squarely at you.
⚡ Quick Summary
- Command blocks: each command shows exit status, execution time, duration and working directory. Failed commands get red markers, running ones yellow.
- Output folding: collapse long output to a single line, with a gutter for fold controls, optional line numbers and timestamps, and a sticky command header.
- Speed: in the developers’ benchmarks, full-screen app throughput rose from 55.6 to 593.2 MiB/s, and colored text from 42.7 to 281.9 MiB/s.
- Shell integration: expanded support for Bash, Zsh, Fish, Nushell and PowerShell, plus systemd OSC 3008 context tracking on systemd 258 or later.
- Quality of life: desktop notifications for long commands, Ctrl+click on URLs and file paths, a graphical find bar and GPU selection.
What is Contour?
Contour is a modern, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator for power users. Its project description lists support for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Windows, font ligatures, full Unicode with emoji and grapheme clusters, Sixel images, vi-style input modes for selection and copy, runtime configuration reload, profiles and clickable hyperlinks through OSC 8. Earlier this year, version 0.7 added tabs, split panes and saved layouts. Release 0.8 now focuses on how you work with command output.
Command blocks and output folding
The biggest addition is interactive command blocks. Instead of one endless scroll of text, Contour tracks each command separately and annotates it.
📌 Per-command details
Exit status, execution time, duration and working directory are shown for each command.
🚦 Status colours
Failed commands receive red indicators, while commands that are still running are marked in yellow.
🗜️ Collapsible output
Fold a command’s output down to one line, which is handy for logs and commands that print hundreds of lines.
📏 Gutter and sticky header
A gutter provides fold controls, optional line numbers and timestamps, and a sticky command header keeps the relevant command visible while you scroll its output.
Navigation, notifications and search
| Feature | How it works |
|---|---|
| Jump between prompts | Ctrl+Shift+Up and Ctrl+Shift+Down |
| Copy commands or output | Copy a previous command or its output directly from the block |
| Long-command notifications | Desktop notification when a long-running command finishes in an unfocused pane. On by default for commands running 10 seconds or more. |
| Clickable URLs and paths | Automatic detection, opened with Ctrl+click, including file paths with line and column numbers |
| Graphical search | A find bar with live match counts, navigation buttons and case-sensitivity controls, replacing the old text prompt |
The line-and-column path support is a quiet win for developers: compiler errors that print file.cpp:42:7 can be opened straight from the terminal, depending on your setup.
Performance: the numbers
According to the developers’ own benchmarks, throughput improved substantially across the board. These are project figures for specific test workloads, so your results will vary with hardware, GPU and workload.
| Workload | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain text | 166.6 MiB/s | 310.9 MiB/s | about 1.9x |
| Colored text | 42.7 MiB/s | 281.9 MiB/s | about 6.6x |
| Full-screen applications | 55.6 MiB/s | 593.2 MiB/s | about 10.7x |
| Image-heavy parsing (one benchmark) | 7.55 s | 1.06 s | about 7x faster |
Better graphics support
Release 0.8 adds animation-frame support to the Kitty graphics protocol and speeds up parsing for image-heavy workloads, which is where the 7.55 s to 1.06 s improvement comes from. You can also now choose which GPU renders the terminal on Linux and Windows, useful on laptops with integrated and discrete graphics.
Shell integration
Command blocks depend on the terminal knowing where each command starts and ends. Contour 0.8 expands shell integration for Bash, Zsh, Fish, Nushell and PowerShell.
It also adds support for systemd’s OSC 3008 context tracking. On systems running systemd 258 or later, command boundaries, exit statuses and working directories can be provided without additional shell configuration.
For other setups, Contour can generate the integration script for your shell. Check the official documentation for the exact steps in 0.8, then follow the pattern below.
# Generate a shell integration script (choose your shell and a path)
contour generate integration shell bash to ~/.local/share/contour/shell-integration.bash
# Load it from your shell startup file
echo 'source ~/.local/share/contour/shell-integration.bash' >> ~/.bashrcOther improvements and fixes
- Better Unicode and font handling, plus configurable tab colours.
- Remember window positions between launches (optional).
- Fixes for terminal resizing, scrollback history, SSH connections, Flatpak notifications, persistent daemon sessions and Windows keyboard input.
- Stability: several fixes for crashes, freezes and excessive memory usage.
How to install Contour
According to the project’s README, Contour is packaged for several distributions, and release packages are available on GitHub. Check that your distribution actually ships version 0.8, since packages often lag a release.
| Platform | Method |
|---|---|
| Fedora | Official package: sudo dnf install contour-terminal |
| Arch Linux | Official package named contour: sudo pacman -S contour |
| openSUSE, Void | Official packages |
| Any distro | Flatpak from Flathub: org.contourterminal.Contour |
| Ubuntu, others | Release page offers an Ubuntu package, AppImage and static build |
| macOS, Windows | macOS bundle and Windows installer on the release page |
# Flatpak (works on most distributions)
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub org.contourterminal.Contour
flatpak run org.contourterminal.Contour
# Check your installed version (native packages)
contour versionWho should try Contour 0.8?
✅ A good fit if you
- Work with long logs, builds and test output
- Want per-command status and timing without extra tools
- Use a mix of Linux, macOS and Windows
- Like GPU-accelerated, configurable terminals
⚠️ Think twice if you
- Need the very latest version from a slow-moving distro repo
- Rely on a multiplexer workflow you do not want to change
- Prefer a minimal terminal with no extra UI
- Cannot spend time on shell integration setup
Command blocks pair well with a multiplexer for remote sessions, so you do not have to choose one or the other. More Linux and developer-tool guides are on VMoreCloud.
Frequently asked questions
What are command blocks in Contour 0.8?
They are per-command sections in the terminal that show exit status, execution time, duration and working directory, with colour markers for failed and running commands and collapsible output.
How much faster is Contour 0.8?
In the developers’ benchmarks, plain-text throughput rose from 166.6 to 310.9 MiB/s, colored text from 42.7 to 281.9 MiB/s, and full-screen applications from 55.6 to 593.2 MiB/s. Real-world results depend on your hardware and workload.
Do command blocks work in every shell?
Contour 0.8 expands integration for Bash, Zsh, Fish, Nushell and PowerShell. On systemd 258 or later, OSC 3008 context tracking can supply command boundaries without extra shell configuration.
Is Contour available on Windows and macOS?
Yes. The project describes it as cross-platform, with Windows and macOS builds available alongside Linux packages.
Sources and further reading
- Linuxiac: Contour 0.8 Terminal Emulator Adds Command Blocks, Faster Rendering
- Contour terminal emulator: official website
- GitHub: Contour v0.8.0.9335 release notes
- GitHub: contour-terminal/contour (README and install options)
- Linuxiac: Contour 0.7 adds tabs, split panes and saved layouts
This article is based on the project’s public documentation and press coverage available on October 26, 2026. Benchmark figures come from the developers and may not match your results. Commands and options can change between versions, so verify them against the official documentation.
