Zellij 0.46 brings built-in terminal, attention inbox for AI agents, and session previews

Zellij, the popular Rust-based terminal multiplexer, has released version 0.46, marking one of its most feature-rich updates to date. The headline addition is a built-in terminal emulator, a notable step for a tool that has always described itself as “a terminal multiplexer first”. The release also introduces a graphical settings screen, a configurable right-click menu with improved mouse handling, including creating floating panes via ctrl+drag, a theme editor with built-in contrast checks, toggleable horizontal pane stacks, and the ability to temporarily hide the UI.

Perhaps the most timely feature is the new Attention Inbox. With coding agents increasingly running background tasks in terminals, Drevekenin noted that terminals are now commonly used for work that requires only occasional human oversight. The inbox, integrated into Zellij's session manager, shows users at a glance which pane, in which tab, and in which session needs their attention, leveraging the recently developed OSC7501 protocol that has quickly gained broad support among terminal programs. Because it is wired into the new terminal emulator, the inbox displays a color-coded pill count of programs awaiting input. Alongside it, session previews give users a quick view into running sessions before switching to them.

The release also opens Zellij up to developers in a new way: it can now be embedded in other applications as a Rust library, providing terminal emulation, layouts, plugin-based UI customization, and cross-platform distribution.