[Feature Request] Pre-load next terminal window/tab in the background

[Datamine]

I am running ghostty with bash. My bashrc has a handful of configurations to check various system settings, so it takes about 1.5 seconds to load. Like many others in here, I open new terminal windows/tabs dozens of times a day, so this is actually noticeable for me, and slightly breaks my flow.

I think a clever solution would be to always have ghostty pre-load the next terminal instance (window/tab/pane) in the background, but just not display it visually. That way, when the user opens a new tab, it's ready instantaneously, which feels delightful.

The only downside is that what looks like a new tab might still be carrying "old" settings (because it may have been loaded a few minutes earlier), which is inconvenient/confusing if you've just installed new software, or changed a setting. For that reason, maybe this could be another ghostty configuration option, and not enabled by default.

Screen recording of the lag that I feel:

Ghostty.Bashrc.Slow.-.Preload.Tab.mp4

[mitchellh]

I think this is an interesting suggestion. It should probably be off by default because the memory cost of holding a surface around might annoy people. But I think having an option that probably takes an integer value of the number of surfaces to have preloaded would be interesting...

[Datamine]

@mitchellh Thanks! What's the best way to move this forward? Should I file an issue, or is there a process to follow for formalizing Feature Request discussions?