Shell

Shell

Print the current shell name and version

Module type	shell
Default order	15 (only used by --gen-config)
Module source	src/modules/shell/shell.c
Detection source	src/detection/terminalshell/ (shared with the Terminal module)

Prints the pretty name of the shell fastfetch was started from, with its version when one could be determined.

Shell: zsh 5.9.1
Shell: bash 5.2.37
Shell: PowerShell 7.4.6

The name is the pretty name, not the process name: pwsh prints as PowerShell, nu as nushell, oil.ovm as Oils and busybox as ash. Everything else prints the executable's basename.

Platform support

Platform	Implementation	Notes
Linux	terminalshell_linux.c	Walks /proc/<pid>/stat up the parent chain
Android	terminalshell_linux.c	Same reader
FreeBSD / NetBSD / OpenBSD / DragonFly	terminalshell_linux.c	Same file; the shared helper uses sysctl on these
Solaris / illumos	terminalshell_linux.c	Same file
macOS	terminalshell_linux.c	Same file; the helper uses KERN_PROC_PID
Haiku	terminalshell_linux.c	Same file
GNU/Hurd	terminalshell_linux.c	Same file
Windows	terminalshell_windows.c	Walks the NT process table

Despite the _linux suffix, terminalshell_linux.c is the implementation for every Unix-like platform. It calls ffProcessGetBasicInfoLinux() / ffProcessGetInfoLinux(), which are equally mis-named: src/common/impl/processing_linux.c carries #elif defined(__APPLE__), __FreeBSD__, __NetBSD__, __OpenBSD__ … branches for the same two functions.

Configuration

Key	Type	Default	Description
key	string	module name	Module key. A single space hides the key and the separator.
keyColor	color	–	Overrides display.color.keys.
keyWidth	integer	–	Overrides display.key.width.
keyIcon	string	built-in glyph	Printed when display.key.type includes the icon bit. Any glyph works, "" prints none.
outputColor	color	–	Overrides display.color.output.
format	string	–	Custom output format (see below).
condition	object	–	Show the module only if the conditions match.

There are no module-specific keys. One environment variable changes the detection itself:

Variable	Effect
FFTS_IGNORE_PARENT=1	Skip one extra level of the parent chain before looking for the shell. Useful when fastfetch is started through a wrapper that would otherwise be mistaken for the shell.

Version detection is gated on the global general.detectVersion setting.

Format string

Run fastfetch -h shell-format for the authoritative list.

Variable	Description
{process-name}	Shell process name, as the kernel reports it
{exe}	First argument of the shell's command line (arg0 on Unix)
{exe-name}	Basename of {exe}
{version}	Shell version, empty when it could not be determined
{pid}	Shell process ID
{pretty-name}	The mapped display name (what the default output prints)
{exe-path}	Full path of the shell executable, resolved through /proc/<pid>/exe on Linux
{tty}	Numeric identifier of the controlling terminal, or -1

JSON output

{
    "type": "Shell",
    "result": {
        "exe": "/usr/bin/zsh",
        "exeName": "zsh",
        "exePath": "/usr/bin/zsh",
        "pid": 21834,
        "ppid": 11447,
        "processName": "zsh",
        "prettyName": "zsh",
        "version": "5.9.1",
        "tty": 2
    }
}

tty is a number in the Shell result (or null when there is no controlling terminal). The Terminal module's tty is a path string instead — the two are not interchangeable. ppid has no format variable, so it is only reachable through JSON.

Examples

// Identify the shell precisely, including where it lives
{ "type": "shell", "format": "{pretty-name} {version} ({exe-path})" }

{ "type": "shell", "key": "SHELL", "format": "{process-name} pid {pid}" }

Pitfalls

• A non-shell parent is mistaken for the shell. The detector walks up from fastfetch's parent and accepts the first process that is neither the login shell nor on a skip list. Run from Python, a build script or a wrapper, and the "shell" becomes that program. Reproduced by launching fastfetch from python3 -c:

  { "processName": "python3.13", "exe": "c", "exeName": "c", "prettyName": "c", "version": "" }

  {exe} is -c — Python's argv[0] — with its leading dash trimmed because login shells start with one. FFTS_IGNORE_PARENT=1 skips one more level and is the only workaround.

• {version} is empty for anything outside a fixed list. Only bash, zsh, fish, pwsh, csh/tcsh, nu, ksh/mksh, oksh, oil.ovm, elvish, ash/busybox, xonsh, brush, and on Windows powershell/powershell_ise, have a version probe. Anything else — dash, yash, rush, a custom shell — reports the name with no version and no explanation.

• Version detection executes the shell. bash, fish, pwsh, nu, csh, tcsh, elvish, ash, brush and xonsh are run with --version; ksh/mksh with --version on stderr and then -c 'echo $KSH_VERSION'; oksh with -c 'echo $OKSH_VERSION'. bash first tries to extract the version string from the binary without executing it, and only falls back to running it. Set general.detectVersion to false for a side-effect-free run.

• sh is never probed. fftsGetShellVersion() returns early for sh (upstream issue #849), so Shell: sh is printed without a version even when /bin/sh is a full bash.

• pwsh honours $POWERSHELL_VERSION. If the variable is set it is used verbatim and the shell is not executed. Without it the module runs the shell, which the source calls "extremely slow".

• {tty} is not a device path. On Linux it is the low byte of the kernel's tty_nr field (tty_ & 0xFF, processing_linux.c:530); on macOS and the BSDs it is the numeric suffix of the pts/N device. 2 means "the terminal that /dev/ttys002 / /dev/pts/2 refers to", not a file descriptor, and values above 255 cannot be represented on Linux.

• The process name is truncated to 16 characters on macOS. ffProcessGetBasicInfoLinux() reads p_comm on Apple platforms and the source notes it is truncated to 16 chars, so a long shell name arrives shortened.

• xonsh is not detected on macOS. The source comment records that the kernel reports the process as Python there, so the xonsh branch is unreachable on Apple platforms.

• Shell and Terminal are one detection. ffDetectTerminal() starts from ffDetectShell()->ppid, and both results live in a process-wide cache (FFcacheEntryShell / FFcacheEntryTerminal). A wrong shell therefore also produces a wrong terminal, and under --dynamic-interval both are re-detected on every round.

Implementation

The parent-chain walk

ffDetectShell() (terminalshell_linux.c:402) starts at getppid() and loops with ffProcessGetBasicInfoLinux(pid, &name, &ppid, &tty), which on Linux parses /proc/<pid>/stat — the name is extracted with memchr('(') / memrchr(')') so spaces and parentheses inside it are handled, and ppid/tty come from fields 4 and 7.

Each iteration compares the process name against the login shell's basename (instance.state.platform.userShell, which is $SHELL when set and the passwd entry otherwise). If the names match, the loop stops immediately: the login shell wins over everything else.

Otherwise the name is tested against a skip list of things that commonly sit between a terminal and the user's shell — init, sh, sudo, su, strace, gdb, lldb, lldb-mi, login, ltrace, perf, guake-wrapped, time, clifm, valgrind, fastfetch, flashfetch, proot, script, run-parts (Linux only) — plus three pattern tests: any name containing debug, any containing command-not-, and any name ending in .sh. A match moves to the parent and clears the collected name.

The first name that survives both tests becomes the shell; ffProcessGetInfoLinux() then fills exe (from /proc/<pid>/cmdline), exeName and exePath (from /proc/<pid>/exe via readlink, guarded by a ffPathExists() check so a deleted binary is reported through the /proc path instead). ffStrbufTrimLeft(exe, '-') strips the leading dash a login shell puts in argv[0] — the step that turns -c into c in the Pitfalls example.

If the walk finds nothing, getUserShellFromEnv() falls back to $SHELL and uses its basename as the process name. Only when both fail does the module print Couldn't detect shell.

Version probes

fftsGetShellVersion() (terminalshell.c:263) dispatches on the basename of the executable. Three strategies are used:

1. Binary string extraction — ffBinaryExtractStrings() scans the executable for a known literal. bash looks for @(#)Bash version <x> and takes everything up to the next (.
2. Running the shell — ffProcessAppendStdOut() / ffProcessAppendStdErr() with --version, -version, -h, or -c 'echo $VAR' depending on the shell, followed by per-shell parsing. For example fish skips non-numeric tokens because the message can be localised, and ksh reads the version out of the stderr banner sh (AT&T Research) 93u+ 2012-08-01.
3. File version metadata — on Windows, getFileVersion() reads the executable's version resource; pwsh also accepts the $POWERSHELL_VERSION environment variable first.

The pretty-name mapping is a small fixed table in setShellInfoDetails() (terminalshell_linux.c:284); everything else copies exeName.

Windows

terminalshell_windows.c performs the same walk over the NT process table, honouring FFTS_IGNORE_PARENT at line 341, and resolves executables through the Win32 path APIs. The version fallback for an unrecognised shell is getFileVersion() on the resolved executable.

Caching

Both results are process-wide singletons registered with the general cache layer (terminalshell_linux.c:380-400 and :439-459). ffDetectShell() and ffDetectTerminal() begin with ffCacheBeginInit(), which returns early on a hit, and destroyShellResult() / destroyTerminalResult() release every strbuf field at each --dynamic-interval round boundary.