Everything terminals

This post first appeared in The Analytics Engineering Roundup.

In this episode, Tristan talks with Zach Lloyd, founder of Warp—a terminal built for the modern era, including for AI agents. They explore the history of terminals, differences between terminals and shells, and what the future might look like. In a world driven by generative AI, the terminal could once again be the control center of computer usage.

Please reach out at podcast@dbtlabs.com for questions, comments, and guest suggestions.

Listen & subscribe from:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Music
• TuneIn
• RSS feed

Chapters

• 01:00 – Introducing Warp and Zach Lloyd
  • Zach Lloyd explains Warp's origin, mission, and initial vision.
• 02:40 – Why redesign the terminal?
  • Zach describes why traditional terminal UX was ripe for reinvention.
• 04:43 – Enter LLMs: A new direction for Warp
  • Warp evolves into a natural language interface for developer workflows.
• 06:34 – What is a shell?
  • Zach defines shells, how they process text, and their role in the CLI ecosystem.
• 07:58 – Shells vs programs vs built-ins
  • Distinguishing between shell commands and standalone programs.
• 10:00 – Why do developers debate shells?
  • Features, syntax, and licensing behind the Bash vs Z Shell discussion.
• 12:17 – Why terminals still matter
  • The enduring power of text-based computing and scripting.
• 16:40 – What is a terminal, really?
  • Clarifying the difference between terminal hardware, emulators, and modern terminal apps.
• 20:13 – The Warp interface
  • Zach breaks down Warp’s UI: input editor, output blocks, and mouse support.
• 22:48 – Will Warp replace your IDE?
  • The vision of AI-driven development and the convergence of terminal, editor, and chat.
• 27:20 – Rethinking development interfaces
  • Finding the ideal hub for AI-native software development.
• 35:00 – Why the terminal has an edge
  • Advantages of the terminal for cross-project, full-lifecycle developer tasks.
• 37:10 – Bottom-up adoption strategy
  • How Warp approaches growth: focus on individual developers, not top-down mandates.
• 39:50 – Is Warp redefining the terminal?
  • The challenges of innovating in a legacy-dominated space and creating a new category.
• 42:45 – Developer control & context in Warp
  • Customization, context-awareness, and MCP integration in Warp’s AI tooling.
• 46:32 – Closing reflections
  • Zach and Tristan wrap up their thoughts on the future of terminals, AI, and developer tools.

Key takeaways from this episode

Tristan Handy: Can you tell us about Warp, where the idea came from, and where you’re at today?

Zach Lloyd: Warp reimagines the command line to make it more approachable, powerful, and useful for developers. I've been a software engineer for over 20 years and always used the terminal, but never understood why it worked the way it did. I used to learn the minimum I needed and rely on team members when I ran into issues.

After my last startup, I looked at tools I used frequently that could have a big impact if improved. The terminal stood out. I realized better UX—like being able to use a mouse to position the cursor or select output for copy-paste—could unlock a lot of productivity. That was the initial idea about five years ago.

We spent the first couple of years redesigning the interface. Today, Warp is more than a terminal—it's a natural language interface to the command line, powered by large language models (LLMs). You can use it to set up projects, write code, debug production, and more.

Tristan: I want to dig into fundamentals. Can you define what a shell is?

Zach: A shell is a program that parses text input, runs commands, and returns text output. You can run it interactively or through scripts. Terminals, by contrast, are the graphical layer that displays text and captures keyboard input. Shells like Bash, Z Shell, and Fish offer different features, syntaxes, and configurations. Some programs like cp are shell built-ins, which don’t require forking new processes.

Tristan: Why do terminals persist in a GUI-dominated world?

Zach: A few reasons. First, it’s easier to write command-line apps than GUI apps. Second, the interface is infinitely flexible—you can pass endless flags and parameters. Third, command-line programs interoperate cleanly via text streams. And lastly, they’re scriptable. Developers can automate repetitive workflows easily, which is powerful.

Tristan: So a terminal just runs a shell. But I never think of terminals as having features. What makes a terminal more than a simple interface?

Zach: Terminals emulate old hardware—keyboards and text displays. Today’s terminal apps are GUI shells that simulate this behavior. Most are "dumb terminals," just rendering characters. But they can support features like theming, control characters for advanced UI (e.g., in Vim), and even bitmap rendering.

Tristan: Warp looks very different. Can you describe it?

Zach: Warp looks more like a chat or notebook interface. Each command's output is grouped in a logical block instead of being dumped in a scroll. The input area behaves more like a code editor, with syntax highlighting and first-class mouse support. We're aiming for modern UX.

Tristan: So you're blending terminal, editor, and chat. Will people eventually write all their code in Warp?

Zach: My vision is that developers will increasingly describe what they want in natural language, and agents will do the work. Developers supervise the results. That interface needs to support managing many tasks at once. That’s what we’re building towards. It won’t even be called a terminal—it’s a new category of software.

Tristan: The boundaries between these tools are blurring. And maybe the best interface for AI-assisted development isn't an IDE or chat app—it could be the terminal.

Zach: The terminal spans all phases of development—from setup to deployment and debugging. It also supports cross-project work, which IDEs don’t. That’s a huge strength.

Tristan: But terminals are a personal choice. How do you think about adoption and your business model?

Zach: Like editors, terminals are developer-choice tools. We don’t go top-down. Our motion is bottoms-up: get individuals to love Warp, then expand into teams and enterprises for security, privacy, and data controls.

Tristan: Are you trying to reset the baseline for what a terminal is?

Zach: We're not open source, though we’ve considered it. It’s risky. But our focus isn’t on redefining "the terminal." It’s on building the best tool for developers to ship software. That might require a new category name.

Tristan: What’s the dev experience in Warp like? Is it customizable?

Zach: We support theming and shortcuts. But the most important part is AI context. Warp can use any CLI tool to gather context—GitHub CLI, GCloud, etc. We’re also implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and plan to better support custom/internal tools as well.