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Feature Reporting (TERM_FEATURES)

Category: device · Baseline: rich · Tags: iTerm2 Extensions · Specification ↗

TERM_FEATURES is an environment variable proposed by iTerm2 for terminals to advertise their capabilities as a semicolon-delimited list of capability strings. Unlike escape-sequence-based detection, this approach allows applications to check capabilities without TTY I/O, making it suitable for non-interactive contexts. Adoption remains limited as most terminals prefer escape-sequence-based feature reporting.
How this is testedpartial
Check whether the TERM_FEATURES environment variable is set in the terminal session.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-04-06

Supported by 1 of 7 terminals (14%). Part of the Rich TUI baseline.

Supported by 2 of 14 backends (14%)

Terminal Applications

TerminalVersionSupportNotes
iTerm23.6.9✓ yes
Ghostty1.3.1✗ noTERM_FEATURES env var not set
VS Code✗ no
Warp✗ no
Cursor✗ no
Terminal.app✗ no

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a means the parser accepts the sequence.

BackendVersionSupportNotes
Alacritty0.26.0? unknown
Kitty0.40.0? unknown
vt100.js0.2.1? unknown
vterm0.2.0? unknown
WezTerm0.1.0-fork.5? unknown
xterm.js5.5.0? unknown