🌲 PTREE Gold — ptg

Passwords for the cloud age, with added retro happiness. PTREE Gold generates cryptographically strong passwords tailored for specific cloud and on-premises services. With a fast terminal-based UI inspired by the legendary DOS utilities of the 80's and 90's. No more blindly trusting random websites to generate secure passwords that match the pattern you need. PTree Gold does it all locally, securely and with retro charm.

Key features:

• Named patterns — pre-built profiles for common Azure and Windows services (SQL Server, Entra ID, Azure SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, AKS, App Service, APIM, VM admins, and more)
• Custom patterns — build a one-off pattern on the fly without touching any config file
• Entropy display — every generated password shows its bit-strength and a label (Weak / Fair / Strong / Very Strong / Excellent)
• Batch generation — generate 1–50 passwords in one shot
• Copy to clipboard — hit F3 to copy the selected password instantly
• Export to file — save the current batch to a plain-text file with F5
• Ambiguous character exclusion — optionally strip 0, O, l, 1, I from the pool so passwords survive being read aloud or typed off a screen

Retro Inspiration

Long before Windows and GUI's were a thing, Text User Interfaces ruled the earth. Utilities like XTree Gold (1991, Executive Systems Inc.) and Norton Commander perfected the art of text based based tools that made navigating a hard drive feel good. The secret was its design philosophy: a minimal, keyboard-driven interface where every action had a single key, panels were always visible, and you always knew exactly where you were.

PTREE Gold borrows that same philosophy for password management:

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Screenshots

Startup — pattern list on the left, empty password panel on the right:

Select a pattern to see its rules in the Generator Settings panel:

Press Enter or F2 to generate — passwords with length and entropy score appear instantly:

Press F5 to export the batch — the file path is pre-filled and editable:

Select ── Custom ── and press F2 to build a one-off pattern on the fly:

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Download & Install

Pre-built self-contained binaries are published for every release on the Releases page. No .NET SDK required to run them.

Windows (x64)

1. Download ptg-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zip from the latest release.
2. Extract the archive (right-click → Extract All, or Expand-Archive in PowerShell):

   Expand-Archive ptg-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zip -DestinationPath ptg

3. Enter the extracted folder and run:

   cd ptg
   .\ptg.exe

macOS (x64)

1. Download ptg-vX.Y.Z-osx-x64.tar.gz from the latest release.
2. Extract the archive and make the binary executable:

   tar -xzf ptg-vX.Y.Z-osx-x64.tar.gz
   cd ptg
   chmod +x ptg

3. Run the app:

   ./ptg

   Note: macOS may show a Gatekeeper warning the first time. To allow it, open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Allow Anyway, or run xattr -c ./ptg before launching.

Linux (x64)

1. Download ptg-vX.Y.Z-linux-x64.tar.gz from the latest release.
2. Extract the archive and make the binary executable:

   tar -xzf ptg-vX.Y.Z-linux-x64.tar.gz
   cd ptg
   chmod +x ptg

3. Run the app:

   ./ptg

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Running It

.\ptg.exe

Or build and run from the project root:

dotnet run

Keyboard shortcuts:

Key	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate the pattern list
Enter or F2	Open the Generate dialog for the selected pattern
F3	Copy the highlighted password to clipboard
F5	Export the current batch to a file
F6 / F7	Decrease / increase password count by 1
Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycle focus between panels
F10	Quit

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How Patterns Work

Patterns are stored as named entries in appsettings.json under the "patterns" key. Each pattern is a JSON object describing the rules the generator must satisfy:

{
  "patterns": {
    "my-pattern": {
      "description": "Human-readable label shown in the UI",
      "minLength": 16,
      "maxLength": 24,
      "useUppercase": true,
      "useLowercase": true,
      "useDigits": true,
      "useSymbols": true,
      "symbolSet": "!@#$%^&*-_+=",
      "excludeAmbiguous": true,
      "minUppercase": 2,
      "minLowercase": 2,
      "minDigits": 2,
      "minSymbols": 1
    }
  }
}

Field Reference

Field	Type	Description
description	string	Shown in the Generator Settings panel
minLength / maxLength	int	Final password length is chosen randomly in this range
useUppercase / useLowercase / useDigits / useSymbols	bool	Which character classes are included in the pool
symbolSet	string	Exact symbol characters to use (leave empty for default !@#$%^&*-_+=)
excludeAmbiguous	bool	Strip 0 O l 1 I from all pools
minUppercase / minLowercase / minDigits / minSymbols	int	Guaranteed minimums — the generator always satisfies these before filling the rest randomly

The generator picks required characters from each class first, then fills the remaining slots from the combined pool, then cryptographically shuffles the whole result — so the required characters never appear in predictable positions.

Adding a New Pattern

1. Open appsettings.json in the project root.
2. Add a new key inside "patterns". The key becomes the name shown in the left panel.
3. Fill in the fields — copy an existing pattern as a starting point.
4. Save and restart ptg.exe. Your pattern appears in the list immediately.

Example — a pattern for a local Wi-Fi router admin page:

"home-router": {
  "description": "Home router admin (no special chars, long)",
  "minLength": 20,
  "maxLength": 28,
  "useUppercase": true,
  "useLowercase": true,
  "useDigits": true,
  "useSymbols": false,
  "symbolSet": "",
  "excludeAmbiguous": true,
  "minUppercase": 2,
  "minLowercase": 4,
  "minDigits": 2,
  "minSymbols": 0
}

No recompile needed — appsettings.json is copied to the output directory on every build and read at startup.

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Built-in Patterns

Pattern key	Target service
sqlserver	On-premises SQL Server login
entraid	Microsoft Entra ID / Azure AD user account
service-account	Windows / Active Directory service account
azure-sql	Azure SQL Database admin login
azure-mysql	Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server
azure-postgres	Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server
azure-vm-admin	Azure VM Windows local administrator
azure-aks-admin	Azure Kubernetes Service Windows node admin
azure-appsvc-deploy	Azure App Service FTP / deployment credentials
azure-apim	Azure API Management publisher / admin account

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Project Structure

ptg/
├── appsettings.json        ← patterns live here
├── Program.cs              ← entry point, wires services + launches UI
├── Models/
│   ├── AppSettings.cs      ← deserialization model
│   └── PasswordPattern.cs  ← pattern definition
├── Services/
│   ├── ConfigService.cs    ← loads appsettings.json
│   ├── PasswordGenerator.cs← crypto-random generation engine
│   ├── EntropyCalculator.cs← bits of entropy + strength labels
│   └── ExportService.cs    ← file export
└── UI/
    ├── MainWindow.cs       ← main layout (pattern list + password list)
    ├── MainMenu.cs         ← menu bar definition
    ├── GenerateDialog.cs   ← F2 generate modal
    ├── GenerateFlow.cs     ← orchestrates generate + custom pattern flow
    ├── DisplayHelpers.cs   ← formatting utilities
    └── AppColorScheme.cs   ← retro colour palette

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Requirements

• .NET 9 SDK
• Windows, macOS, or Linux terminal

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License

See LICENSE.