termset

Save your terminal layouts.

• Save your terminal layout to a YAML file that you can commit into git and open the same on your other devices
• Group and label terminal tabs
• Optional tmux backend: sessions survive app restarts and can be attached from anywhere — e.g. an SSH terminal app on your phone

Termset is a terminal app, written in Rust. It uses Alacritty, a fast cross-platform OpenGL terminal emulator under the hood.

Usage

$ terms terminals.yml     # open a layout file (a default layout opens if missing)
$ terms                 # use ./termset.yml in the current directory

termset.yml:

groups:
  - name: Frontend
    sessions:
      - name: web
        dir: ~/app/web
        command: npm run dev
      - name: storybook
        dir: ~/app/web
        command: npm run storybook
      - name: claude
        dir: ~/app/web
        command: claude
  - name: Backend
    sessions:
      - name: api
        dir: ~/app/api
        command: cargo watch -x run
      - name: worker
        dir: ~/app/api
        command: cargo run --bin worker
  - name: Infra
    sessions:
      - name: postgres
        dir: ~/app
        command: docker compose up db
      - name: redis
        dir: ~/app
        command: redis-server

The sidebar works like a compact layers panel: click a terminal, Shift-click another to select a visible range, then right-click and choose Group or Ungroup. Choose Rename group to edit a group name inline. These changes are saved to the open YAML file immediately. Once edited, the file uses one ordered top-level items: list so groups and ungrouped terminals retain their exact sidebar order across launches. Drag sidebar rows to reorder them or move a terminal into another group.

tmux backend

Add tmux: true at the top of your layout file and every tab is backed by a tmux session on a dedicated server socket (default termset — your own tmux setup is untouched). termset stays a fully native terminal — no status bar, no copy-mode; tmux runs invisibly underneath via its control-mode protocol.

tmux: true            # requires tmux ≥ 3.2 on PATH
# tmux_socket: myproj # optional: override the socket name
groups:
  - name: Frontend
    sessions:
      - name: web
        dir: ~/app/web
        command: npm run dev

What you get:

• Sessions survive the app. Quit (or crash) and relaunch: every shell is still running and every tab re-attaches, scrollback included. Closing a tab (Ctrl+Shift+W) detaches its spec session; closing a scratch tab kills it.

• Attach from anywhere. Each tab is a plain tmux session named after it (web, api, …; duplicate names get -2, -3 suffixes). From a phone SSH app (e.g. over Tailscale):

  $ tmux -L termset ls            # list your termset tabs
  $ tmux -L termset attach -t web # jump into one — same shell the desktop shows
  

  Both ends see the same session live; the window sizes to whichever client typed last (window-size latest), so a small phone doesn't shrink your desktop view for long.

Without tmux: true (the default), sessions are plain local PTYs exactly as before. If the flag is set but tmux is missing, termset warns on stderr and falls back to PTYs.

Shortcuts.

Special key is assumed as macOS (Cmd), Linux (Ctrl+Shift)

• New tab. Ctrl+Shift+T
• Close tab. Ctrl+Shift+W
• Navigate up/down tab. Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down
• Collapse/expand section. Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right
• Start / Stop session. Ctrl+Shift+R / Ctrl+Shift+X
• Copy / Paste. Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V (or right-click)
• Toggle sidebar. Ctrl+Shift+B
• Edit layout. Ctrl+Shift+, (opens the YAML in nano)
• Quit. Ctrl+Shift+Q