ShellX
Your terminal, on your phone. Run Claude Code, Codex, tmux and SSH sessions on your computer — and control them from iOS or Android, anywhere.
End-to-end encrypted (Noise protocol) · No open ports · No static IP · No VPN · Free & open source (GPL-3.0)
Website · Guides · Download · Discord · Contributing
What is ShellX?
ShellX is a native terminal app for macOS and Windows plus a phone app for iOS and Android. The phone shows the terminal sessions that are already running on your computer, so you can:
- Watch and answer Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI or Aider from your phone while the agent keeps working on your machine.
- Get a push notification when a long command finishes or a program waits for input.
- Reach your Mac or PC terminal from anywhere — behind NAT, CGNAT, hotel Wi-Fi or a company network — without port forwarding, dynamic DNS or a VPN.
- Attach to tmux and SSH workspaces you started on the desktop.
Both apps dial out to the ShellX relay. The relay only forwards encrypted frames and cannot read your terminal.
Why not just SSH from my phone?
| Mobile SSH client (Termius, Blink, JuiceSSH…) | ShellX |
|---|
| Needs an open port / public IP / VPN on your computer | Usually yes | No |
| Shows sessions already running on your desktop | Only via tmux, set up by you | Yes, built in |
| Push notification when a command finishes or an AI agent needs you | No | Yes |
| Works behind CGNAT / corporate NAT | Needs Tailscale or similar | Yes |
| Pairing | Keys + host config | Scan a QR code |
| Price | Free tier / subscription | Free |
Longer comparisons: ShellX vs Termius · ShellX vs Tailscale · ShellX vs Claude Code Remote Control
Features
- Desktop terminal — workspaces, split panes, session restore, command palette, SSH workspaces, tmux attach. Built on cmux and the Ghostty terminal core.
- Phone app — live view of your desktop terminal sessions, type and answer prompts, switch between many sessions.
- Noise-protocol end-to-end encryption — keys stay on your devices.
- No inbound connections — nothing to expose, nothing to firewall.
- QR pairing — pair a phone in seconds.
- Notifications — know when a build, test run or AI agent needs you.
Quick start
- Install ShellX on your Mac or Windows PC from shellx.pro.
- Install the phone app (iOS / Android).
- Scan the QR code shown on the desktop. Done — your sessions appear on the phone.
Step-by-step guides:
Contributing
ShellX is open source and we are looking for contributors — Swift/macOS, Rust, Windows, Node (relay) and Astro (website). Good first issues are labelled good first issue. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
If ShellX is useful to you, a ⭐ helps other developers find it.
For maintainers
ShellX is built on cmux by Manaflow: the macOS app is cmux with ShellX changes, and the Windows app is built on cmux-tui.
Layout
- cmux tree (repo root:
Sources/, Packages/, cmux-tui/, ghostty …): the macOS app and the Rust terminal core. ShellX code lives in Packages/Shared/ShellXBrand, Sources/ShellX/, shellx-core/ and windows/ so cmux updates merge cleanly.
relay/: the ShellX API and relay (Node 22, Hono, SQLite), served at relay.shellx.pro.web/: the shellx.pro website (Astro).deploy/: VPS deployment (Docker behind nginx-proxy).docs/superpowers/: specs, plans and the ledger. The native rewrite starts at docs/superpowers/specs/2026-10-18-shellx-native-desktop-design.md.
The previous Flutter apps (desktop and mobile 1.0.0) are kept at tag flutter-final.
Updating from cmux
git remote add upstream https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux.git # once
git fetch upstream && git merge upstream/main
Keep these deleted when merging (Business Source License or Manaflow-hosted services, never used by ShellX): web/ from cmux (ShellX's own web/ stays), workers/ except workers/cmux-paste-text/ (the app bundles it), services/iroh-relay-minter/, cmux-tui/relays/cloudflare-do/, and cmux's .github/.
License
GPL-3.0-or-later, see LICENSE (cmux's license, kept as is) and THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md. ShellX is not affiliated with Manaflow.
