Grass

A minimal, beautiful, zero-config terminal code editor.

No modes. No config files. Just type.

Why

Terminal editors tend to be either tiny and utilitarian (nano) or powerful and config-heavy (Vim, Helix). Grass is the space between: a minimal editor that is pleasant to look at, starts instantly, and stays small enough to understand and change in an afternoon.

It is deliberately not a Vim replacement. There are no plugins, LSP, mouse support, or config files. One theme, one mode, and under 2,000 lines of Python, with Pygments for highlighting.

Install

pip install grass-editor

On Windows, install curses support first:

pip install windows-curses

Run

grass hello.py

Or without installing:

python -m grass hello.py

Check the identity:

grass --version

Theme

Grass ships with one hand-tuned theme: Meadow.

A calm, forest-inspired dark palette — warm parchment text, sage-green keywords, golden function names, aqua class names, and a layered forest-dark status bar. Comments and docstrings sit quietly in muted green-gray so code reads like a clearing at dusk.

• A two-tone wordmark splash greets you on launch — meadow green above, sage shadow below — over the line ❧ a calm terminal editor, signed v0.1.2 · Meadow, and fades the moment you type.
• The status bar keeps the file name on the left and live line,column position on the right.
• An amber dot beside the file name marks unsaved changes, then disappears the moment you save.
• Your terminal tab lives and breathes with you: grass · file.py, gaining a • while there are unsaved changes.
• Feedback speaks in color: saves flash leaf green, problems turn warm red.
• A floating scrollbar on the right edge tracks your place in the file.
• The cursor line glows softly; the gutter stays a shade darker.
• Search matches glow olive-green, and the match you are on turns warm gold.
• Prompts sit behind a green ❯ marker.

Meadow assumes a dark terminal with 256 colors. Terminals with only basic colors fall back gracefully.

Keys

Development

Grass is plain Python with no build step.

git clone https://github.com/mukundzha/grass.git
cd grass
pip install -e .
python tests/run_tests.py

Tests are plain functions run by a small custom runner.

Notes

• Grass is always in typing mode, like nano.
• A file without a trailing newline stays that way, and the status bar says no newline.
• The theme is designed for dark terminal backgrounds.
• Tabs are preserved and shown at 4-column tab stops.
• Large files re-highlight fully on every edit; normal files stay fast.
• Wide characters (CJK) and long wrapped lines are not fully supported yet.