Open Termkit

Your shells, SSH hosts, and coding agents. One workspace.

Documentation · Tutorials · Contributing · Report a bug

Open Termkit is a self-hosted browser workspace for real terminals. A Go server allocates host PTYs, serves an embedded React application, and stores launch profiles in SQLite. Switch between local shells, SSH hosts, and coding-agent profiles without leaving the workspace.

The running application with an isolated example profile and synthetic terminal output.

What you can do

• Keep several terminals open. Background tabs retain their connections while you switch views. Use tmux when jobs must survive closing the browser or losing a connection.
• Manage SSH connections. Save host profiles, import or generate Ed25519 keys, check TCP reachability, and write managed OpenSSH config snippets.
• Launch coding agents. Detect installed Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Pi tools; create launch profiles through setup.
• Work with your keyboard. Use Cmd+K / Ctrl+K to switch tabs, open views, and find actions.
• Choose your appearance. Light and dark app themes, twelve terminal palettes, font sizing, follow controls, and fullscreen mode.
• Inspect and move configuration. Run diagnostics, export/import profiles, and read the bundled bilingual docs at /docs.

Quickstart

Build prerequisites: Go 1.26+, Node.js 22+, npm, and Git. A Unix-like host with PTY support is required; macOS and Linux are checked in CI. Node is needed to build assets, not to run the resulting binary.

git clone https://github.com/natelindev/open-termkit.git
cd open-termkit
make build
./bin/open-termkit serve --port 8765

Open http://127.0.0.1:8765. The first run initializes profiles and SQLite storage. Run ./bin/open-termkit setup to refresh detected shells and tools.

./bin/open-termkit doctor
./bin/open-termkit profile list

The server defaults to loopback. It has no built-in authentication or authorization and currently accepts WebSocket connections from any origin. For remote access, keep it behind a proxy that authenticates every HTTP and WebSocket route, restricts origins, and provides TLS. Terminal sessions run with the server user's permissions. See the deployment guide.

How sessions behave

A tab owns a WebSocket-backed PTY. Switching tabs keeps it alive; closing a tab or disconnecting can terminate the shell. Use a tmux profile such as tmux new-session -A -s main for durable work. Open Termkit does not replace an SSH server or a multi-user access-control system.

State and configuration

Location	Contents
~/.open-termkit/open-termkit.db	SQLite terminal profiles, SSH hosts, and settings
~/.ssh/open-termkit/	Managed keys and generated SSH config
~/.ssh/config	Optional Include reference to managed config

Use the global --db /path/to/file.db option to select another database. Exported sync bundles omit private key contents but can contain hostnames, paths, and environment settings; review them before sharing. Back up private keys separately.

Commands

Command	Purpose
serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8765	Start UI and API; port 0 selects a free port
setup / doctor	Initialize presets / inspect the host
profile list / get / create / update / delete	Manage terminal launch profiles
ssh list / create / import-key / write-config	Manage SSH hosts, keys, and config
tools list / detect / install	Inspect and install catalog tools
sync export --file bundle.json	Export configuration without private key contents
sync import --file bundle.json	Import configuration

Run any subcommand with --help for its flags. CLI reference · HTTP/WebSocket reference.

Development

make dev                   # Backend :8765; Vite :5173
make test
go vet ./...
make build

The documentation source is docs-site/; make frontend embeds its build beneath the application's /docs. The public Cloudflare site serves documentation only. The PTY backend runs on your own host.

Deployment

For a container, run make frontend and make docker-build, then bind the published port to loopback:

docker run -d --name open-termkit --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 127.0.0.1:8765:8765 \
  -v open-termkit-data:/home/open-termkit/.open-termkit \
  -v open-termkit-ssh:/home/open-termkit/.ssh \
  open-termkit:local

For Linux systemd deployment, scripts/deploy-systemd.sh user@your-server builds and installs a service under a dedicated user. Review the deployment tutorial before exposing remote access.

Light theme

License

MIT. Brand assets and screenshot guidance are in docs/assets/brand.