⚡ TerminalBuddy

A Tabby Terminal plugin that adds a live, context-aware companion panel to your SSH sessions.

The panel automatically switches between:

• 📋 VI / Vim cheat sheet — when you enter vi or vim
• 📋 Nano cheat sheet — when you enter nano
• 🖥️ Your custom dashboard — when you're at the shell prompt (reads ~/dashboard/dashboard.txt from the remote machine)
• ➕ Custom cheat sheets — add your own for any program via Settings

Screenshots

| 🖥️ Companion Dashboard | 📋 VI/Vim Cheat Sheet | ⚙️ Custom Cheat Sheets | |:---:|:---:|:---:| | | | |

Installation

Part 1 — Install the Tabby Plugin (Windows)

From GitHub (manual install):

1. Download the latest tabby-terminal-buddy-x.x.x.tgz from Releases
2. Open Tabby → Settings → Plugins
3. Click Install from file and select the .tgz
4. Restart Tabby

From source (developers):

git clone https://github.com/pmitchell-dev/TerminalBuddy.git
cd TerminalBuddy
npm install
npm run build
npm pack
# Then install the resulting .tgz in Tabby as above

Part 2 — Install Shell Integration on Remote Machines (Linux)

Run this one-liner on each remote Linux machine over SSH:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pmitchell-dev/TerminalBuddy/main/shell-integration/install.sh | bash

Then reload your shell:

source ~/.bashrc

That's it. The next time you SSH in via Tabby, the panel activates automatically.

Part 3 — Set Up Your Dashboard (Optional)

Create a plain text file on your remote machine at:

~/dashboard/dashboard.txt

TerminalBuddy will display this file in the panel whenever you're at the shell prompt. You can use any text — system stats, server info, custom commands, etc.

Note: ANSI color codes in dashboard.txt are automatically stripped for clean display.

Custom Cheat Sheets

Add cheat sheets for any terminal program via Tabby Settings → TerminalBuddy.

• Set the trigger command (e.g. htop, python3, docker)
• Add sections with keybind → description rows
• Custom sheets override built-ins if the trigger matches

How It Works

TerminalBuddy uses a small Bash/Zsh hook script on the remote machine that emits custom OSC escape sequences into the terminal output stream — the same technique used by iTerm2 Shell Integration and Warp Terminal.

When you run a command, the hook sends: \e]7701;cmd=vi\a
When you return to the prompt, it sends: \e]7701;prompt;cwd=/home/pi;dashboard=<base64>\a

The Tabby plugin listens for these sequences and updates the panel instantly — no polling, no extra network connections, no ports.

Supported Programs (Built-in Cheat Sheets)

| Program | Triggers | |---|---| | VI / Vim | vi, vim, nvim | | Nano | nano | | (more coming) | — |

Development

npm install          # Install dependencies
npm run build:dev    # Development build (with source maps)
npm run watch        # Watch mode — auto-rebuilds on file changes
npm run build        # Production build
npm pack             # Package as .tgz for distribution

Tabby plugin directory (for dev symlink testing):
%APPDATA%\tabby\plugins\

Project Structure

terminalbuddy-tabby-plugin/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts                    # Plugin entry point
│   ├── module.ts                   # Angular module
│   ├── components/                 # UI components
│   │   ├── buddy-panel.*           # Main panel (routes between states)
│   │   ├── cheatsheet.*            # Cheat sheet renderer
│   │   ├── dashboard.*             # Dashboard stub
│   │   └── settings.*              # Custom cheat sheet settings UI
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── context.service.ts      # OSC sequence parser + state
│   │   └── cheatsheet.service.ts   # Cheat sheet resolver (built-in + custom)
│   ├── providers/                  # Tabby extension point registrations
│   └── data/                       # Built-in cheat sheet data
│       ├── vi.cheatsheet.ts
│       └── nano.cheatsheet.ts
└── shell-integration/
    ├── terminalbuddy.sh            # Bash/Zsh hook script
    └── install.sh                  # Remote one-liner installer

License

MIT — see LICENSE