~/Shellwave

An SSH client for Android
Built because every mobile SSH client makes you choose between convenient and trustworthy, and that's a stupid choice.
Requires Android 12 (API 31) or later. GPLv3.

Screenshots

Unfolded, the session list and the terminal share the screen; collapsing the split gives the terminal the full width.

Features

• Dropped connections reconnect on their own, without re-prompting for a password; optional tmux-backed sessions reattach with scrollback intact.
• Host key verification on first connect, with the fingerprint shown. A changed key blocks the connection; there is no accept-all mode, and a background run never answers a prompt for you.
• Credentials encrypted with the Android Keystore, hardware-backed where available, with an optional biometric unlock per credential.
• Key enrolment: generate a key, install it in the host's authorized_keys, replace the saved credential. The private key never leaves the device.
• Password, private key (imported or generated on device), and keyboard-interactive auth.
• Local and remote port forwarding, SOCKS5, ProxyJump chaining, ~/.ssh/config import.
• Saved scripts, run from the app, a widget, an app shortcut, a Quick Settings tile, or another app.
• SFTP upload and download.
• Per-host terminal profile, colour scheme and key bar layout, each overriding a global default.
• 256-colour and truecolour output, wide characters, alternate screen.
• No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting. It talks to the hosts you give it, and nothing else.

Install

Every release ships a signed APK, built by GitHub Actions from the tag - an unsigned build never reaches the release page:

Download the latest release

Note

Forwarded ports and the SOCKS5 proxy bind to loopback unless you say otherwise. Binding wider is a choice you have to make on purpose, which is rather the point. The coffee shop Wi-Fi does not need a route into your homelab.

Building

Two product flavours, identical but for one dependency:

./gradlew assembleFossRelease   # no proprietary dependencies - the F-Droid build
./gradlew assemblePlayRelease   # adds Play Billing, for the optional one-time tip

SupporterBilling is an interface in :app's main source set with one implementation per flavour, so only play links com.android.billingclient. On foss the Support section of Settings does not exist.

Debug builds, unit tests and lint:

./gradlew assembleFossDebug
./gradlew testFossDebugUnitTest
./gradlew lintFossDebug

The Room migration and Keystore tests are instrumented, so they want a real device or emulator - which is to say the two things you least want quietly broken are the two that take the most effort to check.

Terminal engine

Writing a VT parser from scratch is a fine way to lose a year, so this one is borrowed.

:terminal-core contains twelve files from termux-app's terminal-emulator module, ten of them byte-identical to upstream. TerminalRenderer.kt in :app is a Kotlin port of upstream's TerminalRenderer.java. The package is left as com.termux.terminal so the vendored files stay a mergeable diff.

terminal-core/VENDORING.md records the upstream commit, the file list and the edits made. The engine's pty/JNI subprocess code is not used; sessions are remote shells over SSH.

Third-party attribution lives in NOTICE, which a Gradle task copies into res/raw for the in-app licence screen.

Licence

GPLv3 - see LICENSE. The vendored terminal engine is GPLv3 from termux-app; NOTICE has the details.