ShellFrame

Multi-tab GUI terminal wrapper for AI coding assistants. Wraps any CLI tool (Claude Code, Codex, Aider, etc.) with image paste, Telegram bridge, session persistence, and more.

Why

Terminal-based AI assistants can't receive screenshots from your clipboard. ShellFrame wraps them in a native GUI window that intercepts Cmd+V, saves the image, and injects the file path — screenshot-to-AI in one paste. Over time it grew into a full multi-agent control panel.

Features

Feature	Description
Image/file paste	Cmd+V screenshots, Finder files, or drag & drop. Preview bar + auto-attach on Enter.
Multi-tab	Multiple CLI sessions side by side. Named tabs, drag reorder.
tmux persistence	Sessions run inside tmux. Close ShellFrame → reopen → all tabs and scrollback survive.
Telegram bridge	One TG bot routes across all sessions. /list, /1 /2 to switch, voice messages (STT), file/photo forwarding.
AI busy indicator	Pulsing orange dot when a session is actively working. Pink dot when waiting on a permission dialog.
Session rename	Double-click tab or sidebar to name sessions. Syncs to TG /list.
Ctrl+Click file paths	Click local file paths in terminal output to open in default app.
Right-click copy/paste	Windows CMD-style: select → right-click = copy; no selection → right-click = paste.
Presets	Saved commands with emoji icons. Drag to reorder.
Settings tabs	General (font, UI scale S/M/L, language) and Telegram Bridge (connection, STT providers).
Two-tier reload	UI changes → hot reload. Python changes → full restart with session preservation notice.
Cross-platform	macOS (WKWebView), Windows (Edge WebView2), Linux (GTK WebView).
Auto-update	Startup check + one-click update. TG /update and /update_now for remote management.
i18n	English + 繁體中文. Auto-detects OS language.

Install

One URL, any device — open https://h2ocloud.github.io/shellframe/. It detects your OS and shows the right command with a copy button. Re-running the same command later updates ShellFrame in place.

Prefer to copy directly:

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/h2ocloud/shellframe/main/install.sh | bash

The installer auto-installs Homebrew (if missing), Python 3.12, and tmux.

Windows

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/h2ocloud/shellframe/main/install.ps1 | iex

Run in PowerShell. The installer auto-installs Git, Python, and the WebView2 runtime via winget when missing. If iex is blocked, first run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass -Force.

Requirements

• Python 3.12+ (3.9+ should work; 3.12 is what install.sh pins and tests against)
• tmux — for session persistence (macOS: brew install tmux; Linux: apt install tmux; Windows: not needed, uses soft persistence)
• pywebview + pyte — auto-installed via requirements.txt
• pywinpty (Windows only) — auto-installed, provides ConPTY for TUI apps

Usage

Launch

shellframe            # GUI with session picker
# Or on Mac — Spotlight/Launchpad search "ShellFrame"

Keyboard shortcuts

Action	macOS	Windows
New tab	Cmd+T	Ctrl+T / Ctrl+Shift+T
Close tab (asks to confirm)	Cmd+W	Ctrl+W / Ctrl+Shift+W
Next / prev tab	Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Cmd+] / Cmd+[	Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+PgDn / Ctrl+PgUp
Paste image/file	Cmd+V	Ctrl+V
Settings	Cmd+,	Ctrl+,
Copy selection	Cmd+C	Ctrl+C (only with a selection — otherwise it interrupts, as in any terminal)
Open file path in default app	Cmd+Click / Ctrl+Click	Ctrl+Click
Copy / paste	Right-click (with / without selection)	Right-click (with / without selection)
Clear input line (plain terminal)	Esc	Esc
Rename session	Double-click tab	Double-click tab

Bare Ctrl chords that terminals rely on are not hijacked: on macOS app shortcuts live exclusively on Cmd (Ctrl+W stays delete-word, Ctrl+T transpose), and Ctrl+C is never an app shortcut — on Windows it copies only when text is selected. Closing a tab from the keyboard always shows a confirmation, so a mistyped chord can't kill a running session.

Idle Tab Cleanup

Open Settings → General → Idle tab cleanup to control ShellFrame's automatic AI tab cleanup.

• Idle after controls how long an AI tab can sit without user input before ShellFrame asks it for a short summary.
• Summary wait controls how long ShellFrame waits after asking for that summary before closing the tab.
• Write handoff to master writes a short [ShellFrame 交接] note to the master tab when an orchestrated or idle-cleaned tab is closed.

The same values live in ~/.config/shellframe/config.json:

"idle_reaper": {
  "enabled": true,
  "idle_sec": 1800,
  "summary_grace_sec": 120,
  "handoff_to_main": true,
  "handoff_on_start": false
}

For example, change idle_sec from 1800 to 10800 for 3 hours.

Master / Worker Delegation

ShellFrame can keep one user-facing 總控-* tab and delegate real work to configured worker roles without hard-routing incoming messages.

sfctl roster
sfctl delegate 時程信件 "送假單今明兩天居家"
sfctl delegate Coding "修 ShellFrame 設定 UI"
sfctl delegate 研究 "整理 Plaud 與 RFP 待辦"
sfctl peek s6 --lines 80

Roles live in ~/.config/shellframe/config.json under agent_roster. The delegate command creates or reuses the role's labeled tab, sends a wrapper prompt with that role's responsibility, and returns the sid for polling.

Finished worker tabs are kept by default so the master can follow up in the same context. Do not close a worker just because its task is done; let idle tab cleanup summarize and remove unused workers later, unless the user explicitly asks to close it or the tab is broken/noisy.

Workers should return user-ready drafts, reports, lookup results, or operation conclusions immediately in a ready-to-forward form. The master can pass those results back to the user while other delegated work continues.

Workers should search from known project paths. Avoid broad scans of /Users, ~/Library, ~/Library/Mobile Documents, Mail, Messages, Photos, or other macOS protected data folders because they can trigger privacy prompts for the ShellFrame Python process.

Telegram Bridge

1. Open Settings → Telegram Bridge
2. Paste your bot token, set allowed user IDs
3. Click Connect

TG commands:

Command	Action
/list	List all sessions with last response preview
/1 /2 /3...	Switch to session N
/new	Create new session (shows preset picker)
/close	Close current session
/pause / /resume	Pause/resume bridge
/reload	Hot-reload bridge code
/restart	Full app restart (sessions preserved)
/update	Check for updates
/update_now	Pull + restart if needed
/status	Show bridge status

Voice messages are transcribed via configurable STT providers (Settings → TG Bridge → 🎙 STT).

STT (Voice Transcription)

Supports a pluggable provider chain:

• Local: whisper.cpp via whisper-cli (install from Settings)
• Remote: any whisper-compatible HTTP server (configure in Settings)
• Plugin: custom Python at ~/.config/shellframe/stt_plugin.py

Backend modes: auto (plugin → local → remote) / local / remote / plugin / off.

Architecture

shellframe/
├── main.py                 # Python: multi-session PTY + pywebview + tmux + bridge API
├── bridge_telegram.py      # TG bot: multi-session routing, STT, menu prompts
├── bridge_base.py          # Base class for bridges
├── web/index.html          # Frontend: xterm.js + tabs + sidebar + modals + i18n
├── sfctl.py                # CLI remote control (file-based IPC)
├── filters.json            # Dynamic output filter rules for TG bridge
├── INIT_PROMPT.md          # Auto-injected context for AI CLI sessions
├── ShellFrame.app/         # macOS .app bundle
├── install.sh              # macOS/Linux installer
├── install.ps1             # Windows installer
├── requirements.txt        # Python: pywebview, pyte, pywinpty (Windows)
├── version.json            # Version tracking for auto-update
├── CHANGELOG.md            # Release history (bilingual)
├── WINDOWS.md              # Windows-specific docs
└── .github/
    └── REVIEW_WORKFLOW.md  # PR/issue triage playbook

Tech stack

Component	Technology
GUI window	pywebview (native OS WebView — not Electron)
Terminal	xterm.js 5.5 + fit/web-links/unicode11 addons
PTY	pty.fork() + tmux (Unix) / pywinpty ConPTY (Windows)
TG bridge	urllib (stdlib, zero external deps) + pyte virtual terminal
STT	whisper.cpp (local) / HTTP providers (remote) / plugin file
Config	JSON (~/.config/shellframe/config.json)
IPC	File-based (sfctl) for in-session remote control

Versioning

Format: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (e.g. 0.13.0)

Bump	When	Example
MINOR (0.X.0)	New feature, new Settings UI section, new bridge capability, architectural change	0.12 → 0.13
PATCH (0.0.X)	Bug fix, copy/style tweak, existing feature refinement	0.13.0 → 0.13.1

• Always bump version.json and add a CHANGELOG entry (bilingual EN + ZH-TW).
• Multiple patches within one session can share a single version bump.
• MAJOR stays at 0 until a stable public release.

Session persistence

macOS/Linux: Every PTY runs inside a tmux session (sf_s1, sf_s2...). Close ShellFrame → tmux sessions survive. Next launch → automatic reattach with full scrollback.

Windows: No tmux. ShellFrame uses "soft persistence" — saves the session list to config, recreates fresh PTYs on next launch. Same tabs and labels, but scrollback is lost. See WINDOWS.md.

File locations

Purpose	macOS/Linux	Windows
Source + venv	~/.local/apps/shellframe	%USERPROFILE%\.local\apps\shellframe
Config	~/.config/shellframe/config.json	%USERPROFILE%\.config\shellframe\config.json
STT plugin	~/.config/shellframe/stt_plugin.py	same
Whisper model	~/.local/share/shellframe/whisper-models/	same
Temp (logs, IPC)	/tmp/shellframe_*.log	%TEMP%\shellframe_*.log
TG offset	~/.config/shellframe/tg_offset.json	same

Update

ShellFrame checks for updates on startup. Manual:

cd ~/.local/apps/shellframe && git pull

Or from Telegram: /update_now

Contributing

See .github/REVIEW_WORKFLOW.md for the PR/issue review process.

Author

Howard Wu (@h2ocloud)

License

MIT