BTerminal

Terminal with session panel (MobaXterm-style), built with GTK 3 + VTE. Catppuccin Mocha theme.

v2 complete, v3 planning started. v2: Multi-session Claude agent dashboard using Tauri 2.x + Svelte 5. v3: Multi-project mission control redesign (project groups, per-project Claude sessions, workspace tabs) — planning phase, no code yet. Features: multi-pane terminal with PTY backend and copy/paste, agent panes with structured output, tree visualization with subtree cost and session resume, subagent/agent-teams support (auto-spawns child panes for subagents with parent/child navigation and recursive cost aggregation), multi-machine support (bterminal-relay WebSocket server + RemoteManager for managing agents/terminals on remote machines), Claude profile/account switching (switcher-claude integration with per-session account selection), skill discovery and autocomplete (type / in agent prompt for skill menu), session groups/folders with collapsible sidebar headers, SSH session management, ctx context database viewer, SQLite session persistence with layout restore, live markdown file viewer with Shiki syntax highlighting, global status bar with cost tracking, toast notifications, settings dialog with theme flavors (Catppuccin Latte/Frappe/Macchiato/Mocha) and live hot-swap, detached pane mode (pop-out windows), pane drag-resize handles, auto-updater plugin with signing key configured, @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk integration, unified sidecar bundle (Deno-first, Node.js fallback), CSS Grid tiling, .deb + AppImage packaging, GitHub Actions CI, 114 vitest + 29 cargo tests. Branch v2-mission-control. See docs/task_plan.md for architecture and docs/phases.md for implementation plan.

Features

• SSH sessions — saved configs (host, port, user, key, folder, color), CRUD with side panel
• Claude Code sessions — saved Claude Code configs with sudo, resume, skip-permissions and initial prompt
• SSH macros — multi-step macros (text, key, delay) assigned to sessions, run from sidebar
• Tabs — multiple terminals in tabs, Ctrl+T new, Ctrl+Shift+W close, Ctrl+PageUp/Down switch
• Sudo askpass — Claude Code with sudo: password entered once, temporary askpass helper, auto-cleanup
• Folder grouping — SSH and Claude Code sessions can be grouped in folders on the sidebar
• ctx — Context manager — SQLite-based cross-session context database for Claude Code projects
• Catppuccin Mocha — full theme: terminal, sidebar, tabs, session colors

Installation

git clone https://github.com/DexterFromLab/BTerminal.git
cd BTerminal
./install.sh

The installer will:

1. Install system dependencies (python3-gi, GTK3, VTE)
2. Copy files to ~/.local/share/bterminal/
3. Create symlinks: bterminal and ctx in ~/.local/bin/
4. Initialize context database at ~/.claude-context/context.db
5. Add desktop entry to application menu

v2 Installation (Tauri — build from source)

Requires Node.js 20+, Rust 1.77+, and system libraries (WebKit2GTK 4.1, GTK3, etc.).

git clone https://github.com/DexterFromLab/BTerminal.git
cd BTerminal
./install-v2.sh

The installer checks all dependencies, offers to install missing system packages via apt, builds the Tauri app, and installs the binary as bterminal-v2 in ~/.local/bin/.

Pre-built .deb and AppImage packages are available from GitHub Releases (built via CI on version tags).

v1 Manual dependency install (Debian/Ubuntu/Pop!_OS)

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-vte-2.91

Usage

bterminal

Context Manager (ctx)

ctx is a SQLite-based tool for managing persistent context across Claude Code sessions.

ctx init myproject "Project description" /path/to/project
ctx get myproject                    # Load full context (shared + project)
ctx set myproject key "value"        # Save a context entry
ctx shared set preferences "value"   # Save shared context (available in all projects)
ctx summary myproject "What was done" # Save session summary
ctx search "query"                   # Full-text search across everything
ctx list                             # List all projects
ctx history myproject                # Show session history
ctx --help                           # All commands

Integration with Claude Code

Add a CLAUDE.md to your project root:

On session start, load context:
  ctx get myproject

Save important discoveries: ctx set myproject <key> <value>
Before ending session: ctx summary myproject "<what was done>"

Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md automatically and will maintain the context database.

Configuration

Config files in ~/.config/bterminal/:

File	Description
sessions.json	Saved SSH sessions + macros
claude_sessions.json	Saved Claude Code configs

Context database: ~/.claude-context/context.db

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+T	New tab (local shell)
Ctrl+Shift+W	Close tab
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy
Ctrl+Shift+V	Paste
Ctrl+PageUp/Down	Previous/next tab

Multi-Machine Support (v2)

BTerminal v2 can manage agents and terminals running on remote machines via the bterminal-relay binary.

Architecture

BTerminal (Controller) --WebSocket--> bterminal-relay (Remote Machine)
                                      ├── PtyManager (remote terminals)
                                      └── SidecarManager (remote agents)

Running the Relay

On each remote machine:

# Build the relay binary
cd v2 && cargo build --release -p bterminal-relay

# Start with token auth
./target/release/bterminal-relay --port 9750 --token <secret>

# Dev mode (allow unencrypted ws://)
./target/release/bterminal-relay --port 9750 --token <secret> --insecure

Add remote machines in BTerminal Settings > Remote Machines (label, URL, token). Remote panes auto-group by machine label in the sidebar. Connections automatically reconnect with exponential backoff (1s-30s cap) on disconnect.

See docs/multi-machine.md for full architecture details.

Documentation

Document	Description
docs/task_plan.md	v2 architecture decisions, error handling, testing strategy
docs/phases.md	v2 implementation phases (1-7 + multi-machine A-D) with checklists
docs/findings.md	Research findings (Agent SDK, Tauri, xterm.js, performance)
docs/progress.md	Session-by-session progress log (recent)
docs/progress-archive.md	Archived progress log (2026-03-05 to 2026-03-06 early)
docs/multi-machine.md	Multi-machine architecture (implemented, WebSocket relay, reconnection)
docs/v3-task_plan.md	v3 Mission Control redesign: architecture decisions and strategies
docs/v3-findings.md	v3 research findings and codebase reuse analysis
docs/v3-progress.md	v3 session progress log

License

MIT