peershell

Take your terminal anywhere and work as if it were local.

Share one live terminal session with remote peers and let them see the exact screen and type as if local: from another Tabby (via the tabby-peershell plugin), from a browser (via a magic-link), and, in future, from a dedicated mobile app or our own terminal. Same wire protocol everywhere.

It is the tmate / VS Code Live Share model, brokered by a lightweight rendezvous server: the host opens a single outbound connection (no inbound ports, no NAT), the server pairs peers and blindly relays frames, and it reverse-tunnels the web page from the host. See PROTOCOL.md.

The MVP has NO end-to-end encryption. The relay server sees every byte of the terminal in cleartext: typed commands, output, environment variables, secrets, keys. Do not use it for sensitive data unless you self-host the relay. Access to a shared session requires both a magic-link and a per-session PIN that is validated locally and never sent to the server in cleartext. End-to-end encryption is planned behind the same transport interface.

shared/          @peershell/protocol - TS-only, framework-neutral wire protocol (published to npm)
clients/tabby/   tabby-peershell - the Tabby plugin (Angular/Electron); all Tabby-specific code
clients/web/     @peershell/web-client - standalone browser client (xterm.js), embedded + served by host
server/          @peershell/server - rendezvous + relay + tunnel + accounts (register/login/2FA)

This repo uses npm workspaces (npm >= 9). It is independent of Tabby's package manager: the plugin is discovered by Tabby at runtime from its built dist/, not installed into Tabby's workspace.

Requires Node >= 18 and a checkout of the Tabby source at /opt/tabby (used for tabby-* types; the plugin build is self-contained and does not need Tabby's node_modules).

npm install            # installs all workspaces (self-contained Angular 15 + webpack toolchain)
npm run build:all      # shared -> web -> copy asset -> tabby -> server (in order)
npm run watch:tabby    # iterate on the plugin (Tabby has no hot-reload; reload its window after a build)

Load the built plugin into a running Tabby (on your desktop):

# option A: symlink into Tabby's user plugins dir
ln -s /opt/peershell/clients/tabby ~/.config/tabby/plugins/node_modules/tabby-peershell
# option B: dev env var (from a Tabby source checkout)
TABBY_DEV=1 TABBY_PLUGINS=/opt/peershell/clients/tabby yarn start

server/src/index.cjs is a single stdlib file (only ws). Configure it via environment variables:

create-session is gated behind a valid account token; open registration requires email verification. Email is relayed through Brevo (not direct VM SMTP) so the VM IP stays out of the sending path. Authorise the domain in Brevo and add its DKIM records plus SPF (include:spf.brevo.com) and a _dmarc policy to the domain's DNS so mail is authenticated.

tabby-peershell is published to npm from clients/tabby/ (keyword tabby-plugin, so Tabby's plugin manager can find it). See scripts/publish-plugins.mjs.

Copyright (C) 2026 tis24dev

Licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. You may use, modify, and share this software for any noncommercial purpose, and contributions back via pull request are welcome. Any commercial use requires a separate license from the copyright holder. Previously released under Apache-2.0.

Bundled third-party components keep their own licenses; see NOTICE.

See https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0/ for the full terms.