A small local terminal server that lets the browser act as a terminal window manager.

The Rust backend serves a single HTML page and forwards WebSocket traffic to an independent PTY session. The frontend uses Xterm.js, reads a channel query parameter, and asks the backend to open each new browser window as a separate terminal session. Files under static/ are embedded into the Rust binary at build time. The frontend entrypoint is static/app.js, split into ES modules under static/js/, with Alpine.js stores and components handling the browser UI bindings.

• Browser terminal UI powered by Xterm.js
• Rust WebSocket backend using Axum
• Static assets embedded into the Rust binary
• Alpine.js UI bindings with frontend scripts split into ES modules
• One PTY session per WebSocket connection
• ?channel=<id> URL-based session identity
• New-window button for opening a fresh terminal session in the current session's working directory
• Settings dialog for terminal font and font size
• Nerd Font loading via @xterm/addon-web-fonts
• Settings persisted in localStorage
• Live settings sync across open tabs via the browser storage event
• Window title sync from Xterm title updates
• Dynamic document icon for Claude, Codex, OpenCode, Qoder, Amp, Cline, Copilot, Cursor, Kilo Code, and Kimi terminal titles
• Tailwind CDN for compact page styling

cargo run

The server opens the browser automatically. You can also open it manually:

http://127.0.0.1:3000/?channel=main

When the server listens on a loopback address such as 127.0.0.1 or localhost and only allows loopback origins, Basic Auth is disabled by default. When it listens on a non-loopback address or allows a non-loopback CORS origin, the server prints Basic Auth credentials when it starts. The default username is admin; if no fixed password is configured, a random password is generated for that run.

Use a different port with:

cargo run -- --port 3100

Bind to a different host, or allow a separate frontend origin:

cargo run -- --host 0.0.0.0 --port 3100 --cors-origin http://localhost:5173

HOST, PORT, CORS_ORIGIN, and DANGEROUS_ALLOW_ALL_HOST environment variables are also supported.

When --cors-origin is omitted, only loopback hosts and loopback origins on the server port are allowed, such as http://127.0.0.1:3000 or http://localhost:3000. The same origin policy is also applied to WebSocket handshakes.

To allow arbitrary Host and Origin headers, pass the explicit dangerous flag:

cargo run -- --dangerous-allow-all-host

Basic Auth remains enabled in this mode.

Use ~/.browser-terminalrc to pin a fixed Basic Auth password. A configured password also enables Basic Auth when listening on a loopback address:

username = admin
password = change-this-password

user is accepted as an alias for username, and basic_auth_password is accepted as an alias for password.

The server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default and is intended for local use. It does not include TLS, so do not expose it directly to the public internet.

Shells start in the user's home directory. The PTY implementation uses portable-pty, and the home directory is resolved with the cross-platform dirs crate.

• Rust
• Axum
• Tokio
• portable-pty
• include_dir
• Alpine.js
• Xterm.js
• Xterm.js Web Fonts addon
• Tailwind CSS CDN
• LobeHub Icons static SVG CDN
• Nerd Fonts via jsDelivr