Goblin ScryA Goblin Reactor project

GRAPHICAL DESKTOPS. TERMINAL NATIVE. / 0.1.0

A desktop,
inside your
terminal.

Connect to a Windows desktop. Open a Mac over VNC. Run an X11 app or a Wayland session. Optimized for Silkie, so you can keep it all in your terminal.

Get Goblin Scry Pick a session ↓

Requires a terminal with Kitty graphics support.

The Goblin Reactor silkie goblin
FOUR WAYS IN.RDPVNCX11WaylandONE TERMINAL.

THE IDEA

Your terminal becomes
a window into a desktop.

Scry decodes the desktop into pixels, divides it into terminal cells, and sends those cells using the Kitty graphics protocol. Keyboard and mouse input travel back to the session.

01

Desktop or app

A remote machine, or a local Linux display.

02

Goblin Scry

Decode pixels. Track changes. Forward input.

03

Your terminal

Kitty graphics, with your keyboard and mouse.

goblin-scry
$ goblin-scry x11 -- startxfce4
ApplicationsX11 session14:32
Home − □ ×
▰▰projectsnotes
hello.cpp − □ ×
#include <iostream>

int main() {
  std::cout << "Hello, terminal.";
}
C++ Ln 4, Col 35
Pixels through Kitty graphicsCtrl+] to exit
01 / A GRAPHICAL SESSION IN A TERMINALIllustration

Only changed cells

Unchanged pixels produce no new image output. Each cell keeps its own image and placement, so a small change can stay small.

Pixels at their original size

The default is one desktop pixel per display pixel. Use --magnification 2 for integer scaling on a high-density screen.

A terminal-sized local desktop

Local X11 and Wayland sessions follow the terminal’s pixel resolution as you resize the window or change its font.

MORE LIGHT. IN YOUR TERMINAL.

HDR, through
Silkie.

Scry’s experimental Apple High Performance Screen Sharing backend keeps every color channel in 16-bit floating point. Silkie’s HDR graphics protocol carries those pixels into your terminal, preserving highlights above ordinary screen white.

A Silkie terminal showing Chrome through Scry, including the browser’s tab and address bar, with a public HDR sunrise photograph.
A browser, inside a terminal. Chrome showing a public HDR photograph, captured as a 16-bit frame and displayed by Scry’s renderer in Silkie. This is a renderer demonstration; live HPSS authentication is still being validated.Open HDR AVIF ↗

The screenshot itself is a 10-bit HDR AVIF with BT.2020 color and PQ brightness. An HDR display and a compatible browser reveal its full highlight range; other displays show a tone-mapped view.

Try the current source build. HPSS requires its optional runtime and an HDR-capable Silkie terminal. The published 0.1.0 packages predate HPSS. Setup and current limitations ↗

Public sample: Kloppenheim 06 Pure Sky by Greg Zaal and Jarod Guest, Poly Haven / CC0. View the sample page ↗ · Get Silkie ↗

CHOOSE YOUR SESSION

Near or far.
Windows, Mac, or Linux.

LOCAL / LINUX

Give an app its own display.

Scry starts a private TigerVNC X server and launches your command inside it. Run one app, a window manager, or a whole desktop.

goblin-scry x11 -- startxfce4

Needs TigerVNC and xrandr. Local sessions use a private Unix socket; no TCP VNC listener is opened.

Ctrl + ] exits Scry. Ctrl + C goes to the session. Navigation, function keys, Unicode text, dragging, and scrolling are supported.

INSTALL & RUN

A small command.
A whole desktop.

Install Scry where the graphical connection or local display will run. Scry is optimized for Silkie and supports terminals with Kitty graphics.

Version 0.1.0 is available. Native packages for Apple Silicon macOS 26, Ubuntu 26.04, and Kylin V10 LoongArch.

MACOS / APPLE SILICON

Homebrew

brew tap goblinreactor/tap \
  https://brew.goblinreactor.com/homebrew-tap.git
brew install goblinreactor/tap/goblin-scry

The tested native macOS 26 build includes RDP and VNC. Homebrew supplies OpenSSL 3 and libjpeg-turbo.

Homebrew repository ↗

LINUX / NATIVE PACKAGES

APT

sudo apt update
sudo apt install goblin-scry

First configure the signed Goblin Reactor repository for your OS release. Use the package built for your distribution and architecture.

Native packages: Ubuntu 26.04 amd64 and arm64; Kylin V10 old-world loongarch64. All three Linux packages have been installed and tested through the signed APT repository.

If adding the Homebrew tap stalls

Apple Git may stall when fetching the static tap over HTTP/2. Select HTTP/1.1 for this command:

GIT_CONFIG_COUNT=1 GIT_CONFIG_KEY_0=http.version \
GIT_CONFIG_VALUE_0=HTTP/1.1 \
  brew tap goblinreactor/tap \
  https://brew.goblinreactor.com/homebrew-tap.git

This leaves your global Git configuration unchanged.

Build from source

A C++17 compiler, CMake, pkg-config, FreeRDP 3, and LibVNCClient 0.9.14+ are required. LibVNCClient needs a crypto backend for Apple account authentication.

git clone https://github.com/adamdeprince/scry.git
cd scry
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel
./build/goblin-scry --help

See the repository README for development dependencies and pinned library builds. Download the complete 0.1.0 source archive, including the bundled libraries’ source and licenses.

Set up local X11 and Wayland sessions on Linux
sudo apt install tigervnc-standalone-server \
  x11-xserver-utils xterm sway wayvnc foot

goblin-scry x11 -- xterm
goblin-scry wayland -- foot

Wayland mode uses a headless Sway compositor and wayvnc with Unix socket support. Closing the launched application ends the session and cleans up its display processes.

Use Scry through Goblin Skiff
goblin-skiff -- HOST goblin-scry wayland -- foot

Put -- before the hostname so Scry’s options reach Scry. Use matching current Skiff builds, and start a fresh session after upgrading.

CURRENT SCOPE

Know what’s here.

RDP uses FreeRDP’s software GDI path. VNC includes Apple Remote Desktop account authentication. A real RDP-server session has not yet been verified.

Clipboard, audio, file transfer, reconnection, and RDP gateways are not implemented. Remote RDP/VNC sessions do not automatically change their desktop resolution when the terminal resizes.

RDP certificates are verified by default. Apple ARD authentication protects the credential exchange, but does not itself encrypt subsequent desktop traffic.

Open source. GPLv3.

Goblin Scry links FreeRDP and LibVNCClient. GPLv3 allows the complete application to be distributed with both. Matching source and dependency notices accompany every release.

Read the license · Dependency licensing