textual-webterm

Serve terminal sessions and Textual apps over the web with a simple CLI command.

This is heavily based on textual-web, but specifically focused on serving a persistent terminal session in a way that you can host behind a reverse proxy (and some form of authentication).

Built on top of textual-serve, this package provides an easy way to expose terminal sessions and Textual applications via HTTP/WebSocket with automatic reconnection support.

Features

• 🖥️ Web-based terminal - Access your terminal from any browser
• 🐍 Textual app support - Serve Textual apps directly from Python modules
• 🔄 Session reconnection - Refresh the page and reconnect to the same session
• 🎨 Full terminal emulation - Colors, cursor, and ANSI codes work correctly
• 📐 Auto-sizing - Terminal automatically resizes to fit the browser window
• 🚀 Simple CLI - One command to start serving

Non-Features

• No Authentication - this is meant to be used inside a dedicated container, and you should set up an authenticating reverse proxy like authelia
• No Encryption (TLS/HTTPS) - again, this is meant to be fronted by something like traefik or caddy

Quick Start

Serve a Terminal

Serve your default shell:

textual-webterm

Serve a specific command:

textual-webterm htop

Serve a Textual App

Serve a Textual app from an installed module:

textual-webterm --app mypackage.mymodule:MyApp

Serve a Textual app from a Python file:

textual-webterm --app ./calculator.py:CalculatorApp

Options

Specify host and port:

textual-webterm --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080 bash

Then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Landing pages

You can serve a landing page with multiple terminal tiles driven by a YAML manifest:

- name: My Service
  slug: my-service
  command: docker logs -f my-service

Run with:

textual-webterm --landing-manifest landing.yaml

You can also point to a docker-compose file; services with the label webterm-command become tiles. For example:

services:
  db:
    image: postgres
    labels:
      webterm-command: docker exec -it db psql

Start with:

textual-webterm --compose-manifest compose.yaml

When a landing manifest is provided, the root (/) shows the grid; clicking a tile opens a dedicated terminal session in a new tab. Without a manifest, the server operates in single-terminal mode.

CLI Reference

Usage: textual-webterm [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

  Serve a terminal or Textual app over HTTP/WebSocket.

  COMMAND: Shell command to run in terminal (default: $SHELL)

Options:
  -H, --host TEXT               Host to bind to [default: 0.0.0.0]
  -p, --port INTEGER            Port to bind to [default: 8080]
  -a, --app TEXT                Load a Textual app from module:ClassName
                                Examples: 'mymodule:MyApp' or './app.py:MyApp'
  -L, --landing-manifest PATH   YAML manifest describing landing page tiles
                                (slug/name/command).
  -C, --compose-manifest PATH   Docker compose YAML; services with label
                                "webterm-command" become landing tiles.
  --version                     Show the version and exit.
  --help                        Show this message and exit.

Development

Setup (Makefile-first)

git clone https://github.com/rcarmo/textual-webterm.git
cd textual-webterm

# Install with dev dependencies via Makefile
make install-dev

Common tasks (use Makefile)

• Lint: make lint
• Format: make format
• Tests: make test
• Coverage (fail_under=80): make coverage
• Full check (lint + coverage): make check

Notes

• WebSocket protocol (browser <-> server) is JSON: ["stdin", data], ["resize", {"width": w, "height": h}], ["ping", data].
• Static assets are provided by textual-serve; this project does not add custom static files.
• /screenshot.svg replays the terminal buffer to SVG via Rich; width can be set with ?width=120 and is clamped for safety.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Linux or macOS

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Related Projects

• Textual - TUI framework for Python
• textual-serve - Serve Textual apps on the web
• Rich - Rich text formatting for terminals