Documentation

Fetch Terminal is a terminal emulator for the Linux desktop, built with Electron. It draws its own interface, so it needs neither GTK nor Qt and looks the same on every desktop.

Choose it if you keep retyping the same commands. Save a command once in the sidebar and run it with a click, get your earlier commands offered as you type, and keep passwords in a vault that types them for you without ever showing them again.

How it works

Quick start

Download the newest AppImage from the releases page, then make it executable and run it:

chmod +x Fetch-Terminal-*.AppImage
./Fetch-Terminal-*.AppImage

The first time it runs, it adds itself to your application menu, so you can pin it to your panel like any other app. It needs no FUSE library, so it also starts on systems that only have FUSE 3.

Snippets

A snippet is a saved shell command, including an SSH one-liner. Click one and it runs in the active tab. Hold Ctrl while you click to type it without pressing Enter, which suits a snippet that is only the start of a command.

• A search box at the top of the sidebar filters as you type.
• Pin up to three snippets to the top of the list.
• Drag to reorder.
• The sidebar stays open by default. Unlock it and it folds away as soon as you type into the terminal or run a snippet.
• Export your snippets to a Markdown file and import them again, to back them up or share them.

Your own colours

The app is dark only. The palette button in the title bar opens fifteen accent colours. Pick one and the buttons, icons, active tab and selection re-colour at once, at full strength. The default is brand yellow.

The password vault

Save a password once and click its row to type it into whatever is asking: sudo, an SSH login, anything. The app presses Enter for you.

Passwords are write-only. Once saved, they can be used or deleted, but never shown, copied or exported. Two things protect them:

1. Encryption on disk. Passwords are encrypted with your system's own keyring (Secret Service, GNOME Keyring or KWallet). If no keyring is running, saving fails with a clear message instead of storing the password in plain text.
2. A vault PIN. The PIN gates every use of the vault and locks it again after five minutes unused. Five wrong guesses lock it for an hour, and restarting the app does not reset that.

There is no way to recover a forgotten PIN. Reset all data is the way out, and it deletes the saved passwords too.

What it does

• Tabs running your default shell, up to four at once
• Inline autocomplete from your earlier commands. Accept with Tab or the right arrow
• A command history search, Ctrl+Shift+F, shared across tabs
• Multi-line paste that reaches the shell as one block. Nothing runs until you press Enter, and password prompts still work
• Click anywhere on the current input line to move the cursor there
• Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V to copy and paste, plus a right-click menu. Plain Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keep their usual shell meaning
• Fifteen accent colours on a dark interface
• An update dot that checks hourly, and checks at once when you click it
• No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry

Keyboard shortcuts

Updates

The app asks GitHub for a newer release once when it starts and once an hour after that. A small dot beside the version number shows the result:

Nothing downloads or installs unless you click. Updates only apply to the AppImage. Running from source with npm start skips the check.

Settings

Everything is set inside the app. There are no config files to edit.

Where your data lives

Snippets, command history, your accent colour and the encrypted vault are JSON files in the app's folder under ~/.config/Fetch Terminal/. Each one can be read by your user account only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

To clear everything from inside the app, use Reset at the foot of the sidebar and then Confirm?. To remove it by hand, after deleting the AppImage:

rm -rf ~/.config/Fetch\ Terminal/
rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/fetch-terminal.desktop
rm -f ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/fetch-terminal.png

Security

• The window only ever loads its own bundled interface. No remote content, no CDN, no web fonts.
• The Content Security Policy allows only the app's own scripts.
• Only http and https links are ever handed to your desktop to open.
• The only network request the app makes by itself is the update check.
• Every data file is readable by your user only.

The full policy, including how to report a problem privately, is in SECURITY.md.

Building it yourself

You need Node.js and a toolchain for native modules, because node-pty is compiled on install. On Debian and Ubuntu:

sudo apt install -y build-essential python3

Then, from a copy of this repository:

npm install
npm start

npm run dist builds Fetch-Terminal-<version>.AppImage and moves it into ~/Downloads.

Snippet file format

Exported snippets are Markdown, so they are easy to read, edit and compare:

# Fetch Terminal Snippets

## Deploy site

ssh deploy@example.com "cd /srv/app && ./deploy.sh"

ls -la

A ## heading above a code block becomes the snippet's name. A bare code block is imported without a name and shows its command as the label.

Licence

Fetch Terminal is copyright Lightmorphic Ltd and free software under the GNU General Public Licence, version 3 or later. The full text is in LICENSE. Every release from 1.0.0 is under the GPL. Releases made before the fresh version numbering, up to 1.7.1, were under the MIT licence. What changed in each version is in CHANGELOG.md.

To report a problem or ask a question, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Disclaimer

This software is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The LICENSE file has the exact terms. You use it at your own risk.