Ghostty regression on coloured terminal prompt

[balupton]

Issue Description

Screen.Recording.2025-11-04.at.3.03.53.pm.mov

bash
PROMPT_COMMAND=''
PS1=$'\e[31m#\e[0m '

Type 20 or so characters, then use your home key (ctrl+a on macos) and it won't go to the correct location. Moving around the cursor will corrupt data.

Ghostty 1.2.0 broke support, but Ghostty 1.2.1 fixed it, but it seems Ghostty 1.2.3 broke it again.

Character lengths are not being calculated correctly because it is counting the invisible ANSI escape sequences.

The Dorothy oz theme uses such colours to distinguish when the shell is now sudo escalated.

Expected Behavior

Cursor movement should reflect the visible characters.

Actual Behavior

Cursor movement is corrupted due to the invisible characters.

Reproduction Steps

See earlier.

Ghostty Logs

nothing was provided

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.2.3

Version
  - version: 1.2.3
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS 15.7.2 (24G325)

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

# applicable even when emptyy

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[veltza]

It's your Bash prompt that's causing this. You must wrap the escape sequences in \[ and \] like this:

PS1="\[\e[31m\]#\[\e[0m\] "

See https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Controlling-the-Prompt

[balupton]

Amazing, thank you!