Windows Terminal Customization Cheat Sheet

Windows Terminal is Microsoft's open-source, GPU-accelerated terminal host for Windows, replacing older shells like conhost.exe as the modern front-end for PowerShell, Command Prompt, WSL, Azure Cloud Shell, and any custom command-line application. It is driven by a single settings.json file whose layered structure — global defaults, per-profile overrides, actions, color schemes, and themes — means understanding that hierarchy unlocks almost every customization without touching any other configuration surface. The key mental model: anything placed in profiles.defaults applies to every shell automatically, so you set base preferences once and override only where a specific profile truly needs to differ.