sshc

Manage and connect to your SSH hosts from a fast Rust TUI.

brew install hang-in/tap/sshc

한국어 문서: README.ko.md

Demo

Why sshc?

After 30+ entries in ~/.ssh/config, remembering which alias maps to which host gets old. Editing the file by hand to add or rename a server is tedious, and grepping aliases for ssh autocomplete loses tags and context. sshc opens an fzf-style picker right under your shell prompt — type, Enter, you're in.

Single-binary, no daemon. Recent release artifacts: macOS arm64 ~810 KB, Linux x64 ~1.16 MB, Windows x64 ~1.10 MB.

Quickstart

brew install hang-in/tap/sshc
sshc

That's it. sshc reads your existing ~/.ssh/config and the files it Includes — nothing extra to configure. For add / edit / delete + tags, run sshc -m. Already know the alias? sshc <alias> skips the TUI and sshs straight in — handy for shell aliases and scripts.

Two modes

Command	Mode	What it does
sshc	Inline	Key-driven host picker → ssh → back to shell. No alternate-screen takeover.
sshc <alias>	Direct	Skip the picker, look up <alias> in your config, ssh immediately. Unknown alias → exit 1.
sshc -m	Manage	Full TUI: add/edit/delete hosts, tags, probe glyphs, $EDITOR jump.
sshc --doctor	Doctor	Read-only environment report (~/.ssh, sshc.conf, Include line, ssh binary, SSH_AUTH_SOCK / Windows agent pipes, latest release availability; v0.9 adds CRLF-in-config and nested-Include scope checks; v0.10 adds ProxyCommand-not-on-PATH detection). Exits non-zero only on FAIL. Set SSHC_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to skip the network call.

Inline mode never leaves your scrollback view. Manage mode opens the classic full-screen TUI behind a flag because that's the right surface for editing.

Keybindings

Inline

Inline is modal: navigation by default, / to start a search, Esc to leave the search. Pinned hosts (via manage mode f) and recently- connected hosts float to the top of the list, so the common case is "open sshc, Enter".

Key	Action
↑ / ↓, j / k	navigate
/	enter search mode
Enter	ssh to highlighted host → exit
q, Esc	quit (in nav mode)
Ctrl+C	quit (any mode)
(in search) any char	append to filter query
(in search) Backspace	delete one filter char
(in search) Esc	exit search mode (keeps picker open)

Manage

Key	Action
↑/↓, j/k	navigate
/	enter filter mode (@tag for tag-only)
Enter	open edit form (managed host) / $EDITOR jump (external)
s	ssh
a	add host
d	delete (with confirm)
t	edit tags
f	toggle favorite / pin (★)
v	open a modal showing the resolved ssh -G <alias> output (so you can see what ssh actually parsed from your config — useful for debugging Include / Match ordering)
c	copy ssh user@host -p port -i key for the selected host to the clipboard (falls back to OSC 52 when the system clipboard is unreachable — set SSHC_NO_OSC52 to disable)
g	TCP reachability probe — connects to the resolved hostname:port, reports latency or error
r	re-probe TCP reachability for every host in the list. sshc only auto-probes at startup + after edits (it's a picker, not a dashboard); r is the explicit refresh trigger.
e	open $EDITOR at the host's line
M	promote external host into sshc.conf (original ~/.ssh/config entry left intact — delete manually if you don't want duplicate ssh -G matches)
S	cycle the host list sort axis (alias → recent → reachability). v0.12 persists the chosen axis in state.toml so a fresh session resumes where you left off.
i	inject Include line into ~/.ssh/config
?	help modal
q, Esc	quit / cancel

Inside a form: Tab/Shift+Tab move fields, Enter submits, Esc cancels, Ctrl+U clears the active field. v0.9 added typed LocalForward, RemoteForward, and DynamicForward rows in a Forwarding section between Tags and the freeform Options field. v0.10 made those three fields list editors — Enter on the row opens a small list modal where you can add, edit, or delete each entry one line at a time.

v0.12 extends the same modal to the IdentityFile row — OpenSSH lets a host carry multiple keys and tries them in order, so sshc now stores IdentityFile as a list too. The v0.7.1 ~/.ssh/* candidate picker (↑/↓ cycling through discovered keys) lives inside the modal's edit mode now.

Inside any list-edit modal:

Key	Action
↑/↓	move the cursor
Enter	edit the selected entry (or seed a blank on the + add row)
d	delete the selected entry
Shift+↑/↓	reorder the selected entry one slot up or down (v0.12 G2 — OpenSSH treats declaration order as meaningful)
↑/↓ (in edit mode, IdentityFile only)	cycle through discovered ~/.ssh/* private keys
Esc	close the modal (or cancel an in-progress edit)

Installation

Homebrew (macOS + Linux)

brew install hang-in/tap/sshc

brew upgrade sshc follows new releases automatically.

Cargo from git

cargo install --git https://github.com/hang-in/sshc --tag v0.13.1

From source

git clone https://github.com/hang-in/sshc
cd sshc
cargo install --path .

Requires Rust 1.85+.

Windows

Native Windows support landed in v0.7.0. Use the PowerShell installer or grab a zip artifact from the Releases page — sshc-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip for Intel/AMD64 boxes, sshc-aarch64-pc-windows-msvc.zip for Windows on ARM (Snapdragon X / Surface Pro X / Dev Kit 2023) — both have been shipped since v0.8.

# PowerShell — installs into %CARGO_HOME%\bin and updates PATH
irm https://github.com/hang-in/sshc/releases/latest/download/sshc-installer.ps1 | iex

Requires Windows 10 1809+ or Windows 11, plus the OpenSSH client (Settings → Apps → Optional features → OpenSSH Client). File permissions are not enforced — Windows ACLs use a different model than Unix mode bits, so sshc skips the 0600/0700 checks and leaves inheritance to the parent directory. SSH agent integration uses whatever your environment provides (Windows OpenSSH agent or Pageant); SSH_AUTH_SOCK is not consulted. As of v0.8 sshc --doctor probes the agent named pipes (\\.\pipe\openssh-ssh-agent and \\.\pipe\pageant) directly, so a stopped ssh-agent service shows up as WARN instead of the old "not applicable" placeholder.

WSL2 also works the same way as v0.6 — the Linux build is still shipped and behaves identically inside a WSL distribution.

Configuration

sshc never edits your hand-written ~/.ssh/config beyond a single optional Include line.

• Hosts you add via sshc -m are written to ~/.ssh/config.d/sshc.conf (mode 0600). File starts with: # Managed by sshc. Manual edits inside Host blocks may be overwritten on next save.
• The first run of manage mode prompts to append Include ~/.ssh/config.d/sshc.conf to ~/.ssh/config, with a dated .bak.sshc-YYYYMMDD backup. Decline and manage mode goes read-only (browse + connect still work).
• State (Include decision + last-connected alias) is stored at ~/.config/sshc/state.toml.
• Tags live in # @tags: a, b, c comments immediately above each Host block. Filter with @<tag> (e.g. @prod).

How it compares

A small Rust TUI that's friendlier than rolling your own fzf snippets, safer than inline-editing tools like storm, and lighter than full SSH GUIs — opinionated about respecting your existing ~/.ssh/config.

• Plain ssh <alias>: still the source of truth. sshc reads your existing config; nothing about your current workflow changes.
• storm: a Python CLI that edits ~/.ssh/config directly. sshc keeps a separate file and only injects one Include line.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. I aim to reply within 24 hours.