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Zellij Uses Wrong Shell on macOS

Zellij panes open with zsh instead of fish.

Problem​

Zellij silently falls back to the system default shell when default_shell points to a nonexistent path.

Root cause: The config uses Linux paths (/home/wcygan/) instead of macOS paths (/Users/wcygan/).

Solution​

In config/zellij/config.kdl, update hardcoded paths to match the current OS:

// Linux
default_shell "/home/wcygan/.nix-profile/bin/fish"
layout_dir "/home/wcygan/.config/zellij/layouts"

// macOS (correct for this machine)
default_shell "/Users/wcygan/.nix-profile/bin/fish"
layout_dir "/Users/wcygan/.config/zellij/layouts"

After editing, kill and recreate the session:

zellij kill-session <name> && zellij -s <name>

Verification​

  1. Open a new Zellij session
  2. Run echo $SHELL or fish --version in a pane
  3. Expected: fish shell prompt and version output
  • config/zellij/config.kdl - Zellij configuration