⚡ OxideTerm

Local-first SSH workspace for people who live in terminals.
Connect to a remote machine once, then work with its shell, files, ports, transfers, lightweight editor, and BYOK AI from one place.
Native Tauri app · Pure Rust SSH · No account required for core SSH workflows
Zero Electron. Zero OpenSSL. Zero Telemetry. Zero Subscription. BYOK-first. Pure Rust SSH.

🌐 oxideterm.app — Documentation & website

English | 简体中文 | 繁體中文 | 日本語 | 한국어 | Français | Deutsch | Español | Italiano | Português | Tiếng Việt

Watch OxideSens follow a user request and open a terminal inside OxideTerm.

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What You Can Do

• Manage SSH terminals, SFTP, port forwards, in-terminal transfers, and local shells side by side
• Keep working through network hiccups with Grace Period reconnect
• Use your own AI provider to inspect live sessions and perform approved workspace actions

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Why OxideTerm?

If you care about...	OxideTerm gives you...
One remote node, many tools	Terminal, SFTP, port forwarding, trzsz, mini IDE, monitoring, and AI context stay attached to the same SSH workspace
Local-first SSH workflows	SSH, SFTP, forwarding, local shell, and config work without signup; cloud sync is opt-in via official plugin
BYOK AI instead of platform credits	OxideSens uses your OpenAI/Ollama/DeepSeek/OpenAI-compatible endpoint with MCP and RAG support
Reconnect stability	Grace Period probes the old connection for 30s before replacing it, so vim/htop/yazi can survive short network drops
Pure Rust, native app	Tauri 2.0 native app, russh 0.59 compiled against ring, no Electron, no OpenSSL/libssh2 dependency
Credential safety	Passwords and API keys stay in OS keychain, saved connection metadata is sealed locally, and .oxide files use ChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id encryption

What It Is / Is Not

OxideTerm focuses on local-first SSH workflows. It is built for users who want terminal, files, ports, transfers, lightweight editing, and AI context to stay centered around their own machines and remote nodes.

It is not trying to be a hosted cloud agent platform or a benchmark-only terminal renderer. The product direction is narrower: make remote work feel like one local workspace, without requiring an OxideTerm account.

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Screenshots

SSH Terminal + OxideSens AI	SFTP File Manager
Built-in IDE (CodeMirror 6)	Smart Port Forwarding

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Download

Download the latest release from GitHub Releases.

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Feature Overview

Category	Features
Terminal	Local PTY (zsh/bash/fish/pwsh/WSL2), SSH remote, local serial terminals, split panes, broadcast input, session recording/playback (asciicast v2), WebGL rendering, 30+ themes + custom editor, command palette (⌘K), zen mode, trzsz in-band file transfer
SSH & Auth	Connection pooling & multiplexing, ProxyJump (unlimited hops) with topology graph, auto-reconnect with Grace Period, Agent Forwarding. Auth: password, SSH key (RSA/Ed25519/ECDSA), SSH Agent, certificates, keyboard-interactive 2FA, Known Hosts TOFU
SFTP	Dual-pane browser, drag-and-drop, smart preview (images/video/audio/code/PDF/hex/fonts), transfer queue with progress & ETA, bookmarks, archive extraction
IDE Mode	CodeMirror 6 with 24 languages, file tree + Git status, multi-tab, conflict resolution, integrated terminal. Optional remote agent for Linux; unsupported architectures can self-build and upload
Port Forwarding	Local (-L), Remote (-R), Dynamic SOCKS5 (-D), lock-free message-passing I/O, auto-restore on reconnect, death reporting, idle timeout
AI (OxideSens)	Target-first assistant for saved connections, live SSH sessions, terminal buffers, SFTP paths, settings, and knowledge base entries; can diagnose remote output, run approved commands, inspect files, and explain failures without an OxideTerm account
Plugins	Runtime ESM loading, 18 API namespaces, 24 UI Kit components, frozen API + Proxy ACL, circuit breaker, auto-disable on errors
CLI	oxt companion: JSON-RPC 2.0 over Unix Socket / Named Pipe, status/health/list/session inspect/forward/config/connect/focus/attach/SFTP/import/AI, human + JSON output
Security	.oxide encrypted export (ChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id 256 MB), encrypted local config at rest, OS keychain, Touch ID (macOS), portable encrypted keystore, host key TOFU, zeroize memory clearing
i18n	11 languages: EN, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, FR, DE, ES, IT, PT-BR, VI

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Under the Hood

OxideTerm keeps the product surface local-first, but the internals are built for SSH-heavy work. The full implementation notes are preserved below for readers who want the engineering details.

Architecture, SSH internals, reconnect, AI, forwarding, plugins, and more

Architecture — Dual-Plane Communication

OxideTerm separates terminal data from control commands into two independent planes:

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│        Frontend (React 19)          │
│  xterm.js 6 (WebGL) + 19 stores     │
└──────────┬──────────────┬───────────┘
           │ Tauri IPC    │ WebSocket (binary)
           │ (JSON)       │ per-session port
┌──────────▼──────────────▼───────────┐
│         Backend (Rust)              │
│  NodeRouter → SshConnectionRegistry │
│  Wire Protocol v1                   │
│  [Type:1][Length:4][Payload:n]      │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

• Data plane (WebSocket): each SSH session gets its own WebSocket port. Terminal bytes flow as binary frames with a Type-Length-Payload header — no JSON serialization, no Base64 encoding, zero overhead in the hot path.
• Control plane (Tauri IPC): connection management, SFTP ops, forwarding, config — structured JSON, but off the critical path.
• Node-first addressing: the frontend never touches sessionId or connectionId. Everything is addressed by nodeId, resolved atomically server-side by the NodeRouter. SSH reconnect changes the underlying connectionId — but SFTP, IDE, and forwards are completely unaffected.

🔩 Pure Rust SSH — russh 0.59

The entire SSH stack is russh 0.59 compiled against the ring crypto backend:

• Zero C/OpenSSL dependencies — the full crypto stack is Rust. No more "which OpenSSL version?" debugging.
• Full SSH2 protocol: key exchange, channels, SFTP subsystem, port forwarding
• ChaCha20-Poly1305 and AES-GCM cipher suites, Ed25519/RSA/ECDSA keys
• Custom AgentSigner: wraps system SSH Agent and satisfies russh's Signer trait, solving RPITIT Send bound issues by cloning &AgentIdentity to an owned value before crossing .await

pub struct AgentSigner { /* wraps system SSH Agent */ }
impl Signer for AgentSigner { /* challenge-response via Agent IPC */ }

• Platform support: Unix (SSH_AUTH_SOCK), Windows (\\.\pipe\openssh-ssh-agent)
• Proxy chains: each hop independently uses Agent auth
• Reconnect: AuthMethod::Agent replayed automatically

🔄 Smart Reconnect with Grace Period

Most SSH clients kill everything on disconnect and start fresh. OxideTerm's reconnect orchestrator takes a fundamentally different approach:

1. Detect WebSocket heartbeat timeout (300s, tuned for macOS App Nap and JS timer throttling)
2. Snapshot full state: terminal panes, in-flight SFTP transfers, active port forwards, open IDE files
3. Intelligent probing: visibilitychange + online events trigger proactive SSH keepalive (~2s detection vs 15-30s passive timeout)
4. Grace Period (30s): probe the old SSH connection via keepalive — if it recovers (e.g., WiFi AP switch), your TUI apps (vim, htop, yazi) survive completely untouched
5. If recovery fails → new SSH connection → auto-restore forwards → resume SFTP transfers → reopen IDE files

Pipeline: queued → snapshot → grace-period → ssh-connect → await-terminal → restore-forwards → resume-transfers → restore-ide → verify → done

All logic runs through a dedicated ReconnectOrchestratorStore — zero reconnect code scattered in hooks or components.

🛡️ SSH Connection Pool

Reference-counted SshConnectionRegistry backed by DashMap for lock-free concurrent access:

• One connection, many consumers: terminal, SFTP, port forwards, and IDE share a single physical SSH connection — no redundant TCP handshakes
• State machine per connection: connecting → active → idle → link_down → reconnecting
• Lifecycle management: configurable idle timeout (5m / 15m / 30m / 1h / never), 15s keepalive interval, heartbeat failure detection
• WsBridge heartbeat: 30s interval, 5 min timeout — tolerates macOS App Nap and browser JS throttling
• Cascade propagation: jump host failure → all downstream nodes automatically marked link_down with status sync
• Idle disconnect: emits connection_status_changed to frontend (not just internal node:state), preventing UI desync

🤖 OxideSens AI

Privacy-first AI assistant with dual interaction modes:

• Inline panel (⌘I): quick terminal commands, output injected via bracketed paste
• Sidebar chat: persistent conversations with full history
• Target-first workspace context: sees saved connections, live SSH sessions, terminal buffers, SFTP paths, settings, and knowledge base entries as workspace targets
• Approved actions: can diagnose remote output, run approved commands, inspect files, and explain failures without requiring an OxideTerm account
• MCP support: connect external Model Context Protocol servers (stdio & SSE) for third-party tool integration
• RAG Knowledge Base (v0.20): import Markdown/TXT documents into scoped collections (global or per-connection). Hybrid search fuses BM25 keyword index + vector cosine similarity via Reciprocal Rank Fusion. Markdown-aware chunking preserves heading hierarchy. CJK bigram tokenizer for Chinese/Japanese/Korean.
• Providers: OpenAI, Ollama, DeepSeek, OneAPI, or any /v1/chat/completions endpoint
• Security: API keys stored in OS keychain; on macOS, key reads gated behind Touch ID via LAContext — no entitlements or code-signing required, cached after first auth per session

🔀 Port Forwarding — Lock-Free I/O

Full local (-L), remote (-R), and dynamic SOCKS5 (-D) forwarding:

• Message-passing architecture: SSH Channel owned by a single ssh_io task — no Arc<Mutex<Channel>>, eliminating mutex contention entirely
• Death reporting: forward tasks actively report exit reason (SSH disconnect, remote port close, timeout) for clear diagnostics
• Auto-restore: Suspended forwards automatically resume on reconnect without user intervention
• Idle timeout: FORWARD_IDLE_TIMEOUT (300s) prevents zombie connections from accumulating

📦 trzsz — In-Band File Transfer

Upload and download files directly through the SSH terminal session — no SFTP connection required:

• In-band protocol: files travel as base64-encoded frames inside the existing terminal stream — works transparently through ProxyJump chains and tmux without extra ports or agents
• Bidirectional: server runs tsz <file> to send files to the client; trz triggers client upload; drag-and-drop supported
• Directory support: recursive transfers via trz -d / tsz -d
• Transfer limits: configurable per-session limits for chunk size, file count, and total bytes
• Native Tauri I/O: file reads and writes use Tauri native file dialogs and Rust I/O — no browser memory constraints
• Live notifications: toast notifications for start, completion, cancellation, and errors — including a hint when trzsz is detected but the feature is disabled
• Enable in Settings → Terminal → In-Band Transfer

🔌 Runtime Plugin System

Dynamic ESM loading with a security-hardened, frozen API surface:

• PluginContext API: 8 namespaces — terminal, ui, commands, settings, lifecycle, events, storage, system
• 24 UI Kit components: pre-built React components (buttons, inputs, dialogs, tables…) injected into plugin sandboxes via window.__OXIDE__
• Security membrane: Object.freeze on all context objects, Proxy-based ACL, IPC whitelist, circuit breaker with auto-disable after repeated errors
• Shared modules: React, ReactDOM, zustand, lucide-react exposed for plugin use without bundling duplicates

⚡ Adaptive Rendering

Three-tier render scheduler that replaces fixed requestAnimationFrame batching:

Tier	Trigger	Rate	Benefit
Boost	Frame data ≥ 4 KB	120 Hz+ (ProMotion native)	Eliminates scroll lag on cat largefile.log
Normal	Standard typing	60 Hz (RAF)	Smooth baseline
Idle	3s no I/O / tab hidden	1–15 Hz (exponential backoff)	Near-zero GPU load, battery savings

Transitions are fully automatic — driven by data volume, user input, and Page Visibility API. Background tabs continue flushing data via idle timer without waking RAF.

🔐 .oxide Encrypted Export

Portable, tamper-proof connection backup:

• ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD authenticated encryption
• Argon2id KDF: 256 MB memory cost, 4 iterations — GPU brute-force resistant
• SHA-256 integrity checksum
• Optional key embedding: private keys base64-encoded into the encrypted payload
• Pre-flight analysis: auth type breakdown, missing key detection before export

📡 ProxyJump — Topology-Aware Multi-Hop

• Unlimited chain depth: Client → Jump A → Jump B → … → Target
• Auto-parse ~/.ssh/config, build topology graph, Dijkstra pathfinding for optimal route
• Jump nodes reusable as independent sessions
• Cascade failure propagation: jump host down → all downstream nodes auto-marked link_down

⚙️ Local Terminal — Thread-Safe PTY

Cross-platform local shell via portable-pty 0.8, feature-gated behind local-terminal:

• MasterPty wrapped in std::sync::Mutex — dedicated I/O threads keep blocking PTY reads off the Tokio event loop
• Shell auto-detection: zsh, bash, fish, pwsh, Git Bash, WSL2
• cargo build --no-default-features strips PTY for mobile/lightweight builds

🪟 Windows Optimization

• Native ConPTY: directly invokes Windows Pseudo Console API — full TrueColor and ANSI support, no legacy WinPTY
• Shell scanner: auto-detects PowerShell 7, Git Bash, WSL2, CMD via Registry and PATH

And More

• IDE Mode: CodeMirror 6 over SFTP, 24 languages, file tree with Git status, multi-tab, conflict resolution — optional remote agent (~1 MB) for enhanced features on Linux
• Resource profiler: live CPU/memory/network via persistent SSH channel reading /proc/stat, delta-based calculation, auto-degrades to RTT-only on non-Linux
• Custom theme engine: 31 built-in themes, visual editor with live preview, 20 xterm.js fields + 24 UI color variables, auto-derive UI colors from terminal palette
• Session recording: asciicast v2 format, full record and playback
• Broadcast input: type once, send to all split panes — batch server operations
• Background gallery: per-tab background images, 16 tab types, opacity/blur/fit control
• CLI companion (oxt): ~1 MB binary, JSON-RPC 2.0 over Unix Socket / Named Pipe, status/health/list/session inspect/forward/config/connect/focus/attach/SFTP/import/AI with human or --json output
• WSL Graphics ⚠️ experimental: built-in VNC viewer — 9 desktop environments + single-app mode, WSLg detection, Xtigervnc + noVNC

Official Plugins

Plugin	Description	Repository
Cloud Sync	Encrypted self-hosted sync — upload and import .oxide snapshots via WebDAV, HTTP JSON, Dropbox, Git, or S3	oxideterm.cloud-sync
Telnet Client	Native Telnet client for routers, switches, and legacy devices — no external binary needed	oxideterm.telnet

📸 11 languages in action

English	简体中文	繁體中文
日本語	한국어	Français
Deutsch	Español	Italiano
Português	Tiếng Việt

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Runtime Requirements

OxideTerm uses the native WebView runtime provided by the operating system. Most users already have it installed; install these manually only if the app fails to launch or your environment is air-gapped.

Platform	Runtime Dependency
Windows	WebView2 Runtime — pre-installed on Windows 10 (1803+) and Windows 11. For air-gapped / intranet environments, use the Evergreen Standalone Installer (offline, ~170 MB) or deploy the Fixed Version runtime via group policy.
macOS	None (uses native WebKit)
Linux	libwebkit2gtk-4.1 (usually pre-installed on modern desktops)

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Portable Mode

OxideTerm supports a fully self-contained portable mode — all data (connections, secrets, settings) is stored beside the application binary, making it suitable for USB drives or air-gapped environments.

Activation

Option A — Marker file (simplest): create an empty file named portable (no extension) next to the app.

Platform	Where to place the portable file
macOS	Next to OxideTerm.app (its sibling directory)
Windows	Next to OxideTerm.exe
Linux (AppImage)	Next to the .AppImage file

/my-usb/
├── OxideTerm.app   (or .exe / .AppImage)
├── portable        ← empty file you create
└── data/           ← created automatically on first launch

Option B — portable.json (custom data directory): place a portable.json in the same location:

{
  "enabled": true,
  "dataDir": "my-data"
}

• enabled defaults to true if omitted
• dataDir must be a relative path (no ..); defaults to data if omitted

How It Works

1. First launch — a bootstrap screen prompts you to create a portable password. This password encrypts a local keystore (ChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id) that protects all saved secrets.
2. Subsequent launches — enter the password to unlock. On macOS with Touch ID, you can optionally bind biometric unlock in Settings → General → Portable Runtime.
3. Instance lock — only one OxideTerm instance can use a portable data directory at a time (data/.portable.lock).
4. Management — change the portable password or toggle biometric unlock in Settings → General → Portable Runtime.
5. Portability — copy the entire folder (app + portable marker + data/) to another machine. The password travels with the keystore.

Tip

Automatic updates are disabled in portable mode. To update, replace the application binary while keeping the data/ directory.

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Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.85+
• Node.js 18+ (pnpm recommended)
• Platform tools:
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
  • Windows: Visual Studio C++ Build Tools
  • Linux: build-essential, libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev, libssl-dev

Development

git clone https://github.com/AnalyseDeCircuit/oxideterm.git
cd oxideterm && pnpm install

# Build CLI companion (required for CLI features)
pnpm cli:build

# Full app (frontend + Rust backend with hot reload)
pnpm run tauri dev

# Frontend only (Vite on port 1420)
pnpm dev

# Production build
pnpm run tauri build

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology	Details
Framework	Tauri 2.0	Native binary, 25–40 MB
Runtime	Tokio + DashMap 6	Full async, lock-free concurrent maps
SSH	russh 0.59 (ring)	Pure Rust, zero C deps, SSH Agent
Local PTY	portable-pty 0.8	Feature-gated, ConPTY on Windows
Frontend	React 19.1 + TypeScript 5.8	Vite 7, Tailwind CSS 4
State	Zustand 5	19 specialized stores
Terminal	xterm.js 6 + WebGL	GPU-accelerated, 60fps+
Editor	CodeMirror 6	24 language modes
Encryption	ChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id	AEAD + memory-hard KDF (256 MB)
Storage	redb 2.1	Embedded KV store
i18n	i18next 25	11 languages × 22 namespaces
Plugins	ESM Runtime	Frozen PluginContext + 24 UI Kit
CLI	JSON-RPC 2.0	Unix Socket / Named Pipe

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Project Scale

Measured with tokei, excluding dependencies and build artifacts.

Metric	Current Size
Total code	286K+
TypeScript / TSX	130K+
Rust	100K+
Frontend test code	24K+
Frontend test files	128
Source files (src + src-tauri/src)	664

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Security

Concern	Implementation
Passwords	OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / libsecret)
Portable Keystore	ChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypted vault beside the app, optional biometric binding via OS keychain
AI API Keys	OS keychain + Touch ID biometric gate on macOS
Export	.oxide: ChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id (256 MB memory, 4 iterations)
Memory	Rust memory safety + zeroize for sensitive data clearing
Host keys	TOFU with ~/.ssh/known_hosts, rejects changes (MITM prevention)
Plugins	Object.freeze + Proxy ACL, circuit breaker, IPC whitelist
WebSocket	Single-use tokens with time limits

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Roadmap

• SSH Agent forwarding
• Full ProxyCommand support
• Audit logging
• Agent enhancements
• Session search & quick-switch
• Rust-native migration via GPUI (Zed's GPU-accelerated framework) — [in progress]

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Support and Maintenance

OxideTerm is maintained on a best-effort basis by a solo developer. Bug reports and reproducible regressions are prioritized; feature requests are welcome, but may not always be implemented.

If OxideTerm helps your workflow, a GitHub star, issue reproduction, translation fix, plugin, or pull request all make the project easier to keep moving.

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License

GPL-3.0 — this software is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

You are free to use, modify, and distribute this software under the terms of the GPL-3.0. Any derivative work must also be distributed under the same license.

OxideTerm changed from PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 to GPL-3.0 starting with v1.0.0. We made this switch deliberately: no "open source" cosplay with noncommercial traps or no-competition riders, just clear copyleft freedom for users, forks, redistributors, and commercial operators.

Public code is not automatically open source. If a project advertises a familiar license while adding riders like "no redistribution", "no repackaging", "no competing products", or "no unauthorized distribution platforms", that is source-available branding, not the freedom users expect from open source. OxideTerm does not add no-compete or anti-redistribution riders: the GPL-3.0 terms are the terms.

Full text: GNU General Public License v3.0

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Acknowledgments

russh · portable-pty · Tauri · xterm.js · CodeMirror · Radix UI

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_{286,000+ lines of code — built with ⚡ and ☕}

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