A single prompt brought my favorite terminal back from the dead
Every time I try another terminal, I end up back in Hyper. Most terminals feel like a black box where developers type commands. Hyper has themes, tabs, and plugins. It makes the command line feel like an app I actually want to open, so I have kept coming back to it for years.
Then Hyper stopped moving. Its latest stable release is from January 2023. One maintenance commit appeared in May 2026, and it only changed pnpm. That's it. The repo is barely maintained.
The old macOS version also appeared in a published security advisory. By then, using the terminal I loved had become a liability. I did not want another terminal. I wanted Hyper back!
Claude Code revived my favorite terminal. But not only that, it rewrote the app in a completely different language! And the "worst part"? The whole rewrite started with a single prompt!
"exactly one instruction"...
I opened Claude Code and gave it exactly one instruction:
convert this entire project to rust. make it native!
and create the new rust project in "../hyper-revamp-rust/"
That single prompt gave me a Rust version that was already about 70% done.
I expected Claude Code to give me a rough shell. Maybe a blank window, a pile of broken code, and a long weekend ahead. Instead, it converted most of the app in one shot. Different language. Different foundation. Still Hyper.
The original Hyper carries a small web browser around inside the app because its interface was written in Electron, a web technology. My version is native Rust. It opens one process and gets to work.
No browser hiding inside it. No extra layers pretending to be a desktop app. Just the terminal.
Here's the repo, for anyone who wants to see it.
"looked like magic"...
The first 70% looked like magic. Then I tried to use it like my real terminal.
The right-click menu did not work. Autocomplete did not work. A few small behaviors felt wrong. Nothing dramatic. Just the annoying stuff that separates "it runs" from "I can use this every day."
Claude Code got the rewrite shockingly far. I fixed the menus, autocomplete, and the small behaviors I notice every day.
"It felt instant"...
The first time I opened the finished Rust version, it felt instant. My old terminal was back.
I ran a bunch of benchmarks to see if it really was that fast. The results were kind of ridiculous!
Startup was the change I felt first. The rewrite also shrank the app from the size of a short video to something closer to a few photos.
Electron Hyper vs. Rust hyper-revamp
| Metric | Original Hyper | Rust hyper-revamp | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready for typing | 1.22 seconds | 0.32 seconds | 3.8× faster |
| Idle memory | 464 MB | 146 MB | 68% less |
| Processor time | 47.4 seconds | 8.2 seconds | 83% less |
| Disk space | 230 MB | 17 MB | 93% smaller |
I put the full benchmark and method in the project if you want every number.
Rust is not a magic adjective. The win came from removing a lot of machinery I did not need: the built-in browser, the JavaScript runtime, and the extra processes connecting them. Rewriting the app gave me a chance to keep the experience and throw away the weight.
"the plugins had nowhere to run"...
Of course, there was a catch. Hyper's plugins were made for the old web-based app. Think of them like browser extensions. Once I removed the browser, the plugins had nowhere to run.
So I converted the plugins I use into Rust. The rest of the Hyper plugin store is still missing. If your setup depends on those plugins, the original is still better for you.
Hyper was a platform. Hyper-revamp is my terminal.
"It's just a rewrite in Rust"...
Someone will look at this and say, "It's just a rewrite in Rust."
It is! And that's exactly why I love it.
I did not need to invent a new kind of terminal. I did not need to bolt an AI chat box onto the command line. I wanted the same Hyper I already loved, except current, fast, reliable, and mine.
Now Hyper is back. It is current, fast, reliable, and mine!
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