dasshboard

A home screen for your terminal. Every host in ~/.ssh/config — plus anything you add yourself — becomes a tile. Pick one and it connects.

Install

uv tool install dasshboard      # or: pipx install dasshboard
dasshboard                      # try it
dasshboard --startup on         # ...then, if you want it with every terminal

Installing touches nothing but your PATH. --startup on is the only thing that edits a shell rc, and --startup off undoes it exactly.

Keys

Everything is editable in the TUI — there is no $EDITOR handoff. ~/.ssh/config is never written to: editing one of its hosts writes an override block in config.toml that merges on top of it.

Config

~/.config/dasshboard/config.toml (%APPDATA%\dasshboard\ on Windows), created with a commented template on first run. dasshboard --config prints the path.

[options]
include_ssh_config = true   # false shows only the hosts defined here
show_hidden = false         # open with hidden tiles on screen; X toggles them
open_in = "tab"             # "tab", "window" or "current"

[theme]
primary = "#aaaaaa"
accent = "#ff0000"

[[local]]                   # a command on this machine
label = "MACBOOK-PRO"
command = "/bin/zsh"        # optional: your login shell by default
folder = "~/dasshboard-tui" # optional: home by default

[[host]]
name = "myserver"
hostname = "10.0.0.5"
user = "albe"
jump = "bastion"
folder = "/srv/app"         # optional: the far side's home by default
command = "tmux attach"     # optional: a login shell by default
color = "#4f8ab0"           # optional: auto-assigned by default
hidden = false              # true keeps it off the board until X

[[section]]                 # a group heading, drawn in this order
title = "work"
items = ["myserver", "bastion"]

Edits rewrite whole blocks as text, so your comments and formatting survive. A TOML error is reported in the status line and leaves the board usable.

Compatibility

The TUI runs anywhere — macOS, Linux, BSD, Windows Terminal. Opening a session in this terminal works everywhere too.

Opening a new tab or window needs a terminal with an automation interface, which today means Ghostty ≥ 1.2 on macOS; there the new surface also gets the host's colour as a tint and its circle in the tab title. Everywhere else tab and window resolve to current — they still parse and still travel in a shared config, so nothing breaks. Override the guess with DASSHBOARD_BACKEND=ghostty|inplace.

Development

cargo build --release        # ~/.local/bin/dasshboard symlinks to the output
cargo test                   # parsing, escaping, colour assignment, layout
./target/release/dasshboard --list      # tiles and colours, no TUI
./target/release/dasshboard --open alex # connect to one host, no TUI
./docs/demo/record.sh                   # regenerate the gifs (needs vhs)

src/platform.rs holds the OS differences; src/ghostty.rs is the only module that knows Ghostty exists. Layout is checked headlessly with ratatui's TestBackend.