- Author
- Alex Alejandre, interviewing Mitchell Hashimoto
- Published
- July 2026
- Kind
- Written question-and-answer interview
- Original
- alexalejandre.com/programming/interview-with-mitchell-hashimoto/
- Subject
- Software design
What it is
Alex Alejandre interviews Mitchell Hashimoto in July 2026. The page notes that Hashimoto made Vagrant, Packer, Consul, Terraform, Vault, Nomad and Waypoint. The talk covers terminals, Zig and open source.
What it says
- Hashimoto built Ghostty to learn terminals and Zig, and ran a long private beta.
- Hashimoto proposes an n-screen API and a button protocol for terminals.
- Hashimoto says maintainers owe users nothing, though Hashimoto still feels bound to fix problems.
- Hashimoto says one well-chosen feature can replace several requests.
- Hashimoto says AI did about 90% of a large Zig-migration diff automatically.
- Hashimoto says shipped code must be read and understood, even if demos are sloppy.
- Hashimoto advises learning how computers work, since languages matter less.
What evidence it gives
The interview offers first-person experience and a few examples from Ghostty and Zig. It gives no benchmarks or external data. Claims such as the 90% figure are the interviewee's own account.
Interests and limits
Hashimoto leads Ghostty and has a stake in these views on terminals. Hashimoto says neither party has anything to sell. The interview does not test the claims.