Shells

quarto-term works with any shell — or any REPL — that provides a detectable prompt. Set shell to any executable on your system and configure prompt or prompt-regex to match what it emits.

Quick Start with Profiles

For common shells, use profile to set shell, prompt, and PS2 in one line:

extensions:
  term:
    profile: python

Available profiles:

Profile	Shell	Prompt	PS2
`bash`	`bash --norc --noprofile`	`$`	`>`
`duckdb`	`duckdb`	`D`	`>`
`fish`	`fish --no-config`	`>`	(empty)
`node`	`node`	`>`	`...`
`nushell`	`nu --no-config-file`	`>`	`:::`
`python`	`python3 -q`	`>>>`	`...`
`r`	`R --no-save --no-restore --quiet`	`>`	`+`
`ruby`	`irb --noecho --nomultiline`	`irb>`	`irb*`
`sh`	`sh`	`$`	`>`
`sqlite`	`sqlite3`	`sqlite>`	`...>`
`zsh`	`zsh --no-rcs`	`$`	`>`

Profiles set defaults that you can override individually:

extensions:
  term:
    profile: python
    prompt: "In:"  # override just the prompt

Supported Shells

Each shell below is a live demonstration rendered by quarto-term:

Shell	Config needed
Bash	`profile: bash`
DuckDB	`profile: duckdb`
Fish	`profile: fish` + init for prompt function
Node.js	`profile: node`
Nushell	`profile: nushell` + inline config via `-e`
POSIX sh	`profile: sh`
Python	`profile: python`
R	`profile: r`
Ruby	`profile: ruby` + `prompt-regex`
SQLite	`profile: sqlite`
Zsh	`profile: zsh` (default)

How It Works

The shell option specifies the executable to spawn. quarto-term then:

Starts the shell with the given shell-args
Sets PS1 via the environment (for shells that support it)
Waits for the configured prompt pattern to appear in output
Sends commands and captures output between prompts

For shells that don’t use PS1 (like fish or nushell), configure the prompt through the shell’s own mechanism using init or env, and set prompt or prompt-regex to match it.

Configuration Tips

When adding a new shell, you need:

shell — the executable name or path
shell-args — flags to suppress rc files (for reproducibility)
prompt — a literal string that appears at the start of each prompt line
prompt-regex — (optional) a regex override if the prompt is more complex
init — (optional) commands to configure the shell’s prompt

For project-wide configuration in _quarto.yml:

extensions:
  term:
    shell: fish
    shell-args: ["--no-config", "-C", "function fish_prompt; echo -n '$ '; end"]
    prompt: "$"

Syntax Highlighting

quarto-term captures whatever the shell renders, including ANSI colors. Shells that support syntax highlighting will produce colored output automatically.

Shell	Syntax highlighting
Bash	Not available
DuckDB	Built-in (colored SQL and tables)
Fish	Built-in; configure `fish_color_*` variables
Node.js	Built-in (colored output values)
Nushell	Built-in (enabled by default)
POSIX sh	Not available
Python	Built-in via PyREPL (3.13+); use `strip-auto-indent: true`
R	Not available
Ruby	Built-in via reline (Ruby 3.x+); use `strip-auto-indent: true`
SQLite	Not available
Zsh	zsh-syntax-highlighting via `init`

Zsh

Add zsh-syntax-highlighting to init. quarto-term auto-detects common installation paths:

extensions:
  term:
    init:
      - zsh-syntax-highlighting

Fish

Set fish_color_* variables in the -C init argument:

extensions:
  term:
    shell: fish
    shell-args:
      - "--no-config"
      - "-C"
      - "`function fish_prompt; ...; set fish_color_command blue; ...`"

See the Fish page for the full list of color variables.