ghostty-tab: Open a new Ghostty tab and run a command (macOS AppleScript workaround)

ghostty-tab.sh

#!/bin/bash
# ghostty-tab: Open a new Ghostty tab and run a command in it
#
# Ghostty doesn't yet have a CLI flag or IPC for opening tabs in an
# existing instance (pending their Scripting API). This uses AppleScript
# keystrokes as a workaround. macOS only.
#
# Requires: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility
#           permission for osascript (or the parent process).
#
# Usage: ghostty-tab "cd ~/projects/foo && claude 'prompt here'"
#
# Works well with Claude Code dispatch workflows — open a new tab
# with a pre-loaded prompt:
#   ghostty-tab "cd ~/projects/my-worktree && claude 'Read .claude/dispatch-context.md'"

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Usage: ghostty-tab <command>"
  exit 1
fi

osascript - "$1" <<'APPLESCRIPT'
on run argv
  set cmd to item 1 of argv
  tell application "Ghostty"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
      keystroke "t" using command down
      delay 0.5
      keystroke cmd
      key code 36
    end tell
  end tell
end run
APPLESCRIPT

This sends synthetic keystrokes via System Events — understand what that means before granting Accessibility access.