For the past year, I’ve been tinkering, building, breaking, rebuilding, and finally polishing a little side project that started out as a personal itch. Like many sysadmins and developers, I live in the terminal, and I connect to way too many servers on a daily basis. My ~/.ssh/config file grew into a monster – dozens upon dozens of hosts, each with their own quirks, aliases, and forgotten options. At some point, I realized I needed something better than a jumble of text.
So I built TuSSH.
It’s a terminal-based app (hence the name: a mashup of TUI + SSH) that helps you manage your SSH connections with style, speed, and a pinch of retro charm.
What TuSSH Does for You
Instead of memorizing obscure hostnames or scrolling endlessly through your SSH config, TuSSH gives you a clean, scrollable interface right in your terminal. On the left, you see all your configured hosts neatly listed; on the right, you get their details. A single press of Enter connects you instantly to the selected host.
But it doesn’t stop there. One of the things I always found annoying was editing SSH configs by hand. TuSSH makes this less of a chore by letting you add new hosts through a friendly modal window. You can fill in the usual suspects – hostname, port, user – and if you need something exotic, there’s a freeform text field for custom directives. Editing and deleting hosts is just as simple.
It’s fast, it’s practical, and it’s designed to make life easier for people who, like me, juggle too many servers at once.
Why Retro-Modern?
I grew up in the days of BBSes and text-only terminals, so the retro vibe is a nod to that heritage. But don’t be fooled: TuSSH may look nostalgic, but it borrows ideas from modern app design. It uses smooth navigation, styled interfaces, and the kind of responsiveness you’d expect from a contemporary tool. Think of it as retro aesthetics meeting modern usability.
Let’s Collaborate
TuSSH is now live on GitHub, free and open source: github.com/kimusan/tussh.
I’d love for you to try it out, poke around, and maybe even make it your daily driver for SSH work. Even more, I’d love contributions. Found a bug? File an issue. Got an idea for a feature? Let me hear about it. Want to roll up your sleeves and submit a pull request? Even better.
This is a project made for sysadmins, developers, and terminal enthusiasts – by someone who lives in that same world. With your help, TuSSH can grow into the SSH manager we’ve all wished for at some point.
So go ahead: clone it, run it, and let TuSSH take the pain out of managing your server zoo. And if it makes your day a little easier, then I’ll call the past year of work well spent.
