The first ROS2-native agentic terminal for Apple Silicon.
Built by RobotFlow Labs • Pure Swift • SwiftTerm Engine

Features • Build • Architecture • Shortcuts • License

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Why ROBOTERM?

Robotics developers on macOS suffer from fragmented tooling — jumping between ros2 CLI, rqt, RViz, Foxglove, Docker, and SSH sessions. ROBOTERM unifies everything into one terminal with:

• Native SSH connections — Cursor/Termius-style sidebar, one-click connect, direct PTY process
• One-click AI agents (Claude Code, Codex) for agentic development
• 31 rt CLI commands for ROS2 introspection, debugging, and deployment
• Docker container management with tree view, play/stop, shell access
• Hardware auto-detection (cameras, LiDAR, Jetson, serial devices)
• ANIMA module management — per-module Docker, ROS2, and SSH config
• Pure Swift — zero C/Zig dependencies, SwiftTerm engine
• Industrial Cyberpunk design matching the RobotFlow Labs ecosystem

ROBOTERM (Swift, ~6500 lines + 1100 lines shell tools)
    |
    +-- Chrome Layer
    |   +-- Agent launcher bar (Claude Code, Codex + ROS2 buttons)
    |   +-- SSH connections panel (one-click connect, direct PTY)
    |   +-- ANIMA module panel (Docker status, SSH, ROS2 per-module)
    |   +-- Docker container panel (tree view, compose groups)
    |   +-- Hardware panel (IOKit USB hotplug detection)
    |   +-- Status bar (CPU/MEM, git branch, ROS2 domain, SSH info)
    |   +-- 5-tab preferences (General, Appearance, Agents, ANIMA, SSH)
    |   +-- Workspace sidebar (Industrial Cyberpunk design)
    |   +-- AppleScript support (SDEF + Cocoa scripting)
    |   +-- Session persistence (incl. SSH tab restore)
    |
    +-- SwiftTerm (pure Swift terminal engine via SPM)
        +-- Core Text rendering
        +-- VT100/xterm parser
        +-- Built-in shell + SSH process management
        +-- Keyboard, mouse, clipboard handling

Features

Agent Launcher Bar

One-click launch for AI coding agents directly from the toolbar:

• Claude Code — Anthropic's CLI agent
• Codex — OpenAI's CLI agent
• Quick buttons: nodes, topics, services, params, gazebo, rviz2, rqt, doctor, docker

Native SSH Connections

Cursor/Termius-style SSH directly from the sidebar:

• Direct PTY process — /usr/bin/ssh runs as the terminal process (no shell + sendText hack)
• Connection profiles — saved in ~/.config/roboterm/ssh-connections.json
• Sidebar panel — "SSH CONNECTIONS" with one-click connect, cyan accent
• Tab differentiation — SSH tabs show network icon, cyan indicator, [SSH] title prefix
• Key file support — Browse button for ~/.ssh/ identity files
• Session persistence — SSH tabs restore on relaunch
• Smart integration — SSH tabs skip directory regrouping, status bar shows connection info, agents open in new local tab

ANIMA Module Management

Per-module configuration for the ANIMA perception stack:

• Docker container name, profile (CPU/GPU), ports, volumes, env vars
• ROS2 node name and watched topics
• SSH remote access with host, user, port, key path
• One-click SSH connect from module context menu

Docker Container Management

VS Code-style container panel in the sidebar:

• Tree view grouped by Docker Compose project
• Play/stop icons for each container
• Hover actions: Shell, Logs, Stop/Start
• Right-click: full lifecycle management (start, stop, restart, remove)
• Auto-refresh every 10 seconds

ROS2 Integration (60+ commands)

Category	Commands
Introspect	nodes, topics, services, actions, params, interfaces, rqt_graph
Diagnostics	doctor, daemon, multicast, wtf, topic hz/delay
Transforms	view_frames, tf2_echo, tf2_monitor
Launch & Build	ros2 launch/run, colcon build/test, --symlink-install
Bag Recording	record all, record select, play, info
Simulation	Gazebo, RViz2, rqt, MuJoCo, Isaac Sim

CLI Tools (30 commands)

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

[ -n "$ROBOTERM" ] && [ -f "$ROBOTERM_TOOLS" ] && source "$ROBOTERM_TOOLS"

rt init        — Auto-detect & source ROS2 workspace
rt connect     — Bridge ros2 CLI to Docker container
rt status      — One-line system status
rt nodes       — Live node dashboard
rt topics      — Topic monitor with types
rt services    — Service list with types
rt params      — Parameter browser
rt doctor      — System diagnostics
rt tf          — Transform tree
rt build       — Smart colcon build with auto-source
rt bag         — Bag management (list, info, record, play)
rt hz/echo     — Topic frequency / pretty echo
rt launch      — Enhanced ros2 launch
rt dds         — DDS configuration & diagnostics
rt docker      — Docker helpers (ps, up, down, logs, shell)
rt lifecycle   — Node lifecycle management
rt sensor      — Sensor monitoring (list, watch, hz, bw)
rt ssh         — SSH to configured robots
rt watch       — Watch multiple topics (--all for live)
rt kill        — Kill a ROS2 node
rt graph       — ASCII node connection graph
rt profile     — Environment profiles (list, create, load, save)
rt export      — Export to Foxglove (bag2csv, bag2mcap)
rt disk        — Disk usage for robotics data
rt log         — ROS2 log viewer
rt dupes       — Find duplicate files by hash
rt alias       — Custom command shortcuts

Right-Click Context Menu

• Copy, Paste, Split (Right/Left/Down/Up), Reset Terminal, Select All
• ROS2 submenu: nodes, topics, services, doctor, TF tree, topic Hz
• Launch Agent submenu: Claude Code, Codex

Hardware Auto-Detection

IOKit USB hotplug monitor with dedicated CFRunLoop thread:

• Cameras: ZED (2/2i/Mini/X), RealSense, USB cameras
• LiDAR: Velodyne, Ouster, Livox, RPLIDAR, Hokuyo
• Compute: Jetson, Raspberry Pi (via network probe)
• Serial: USB serial devices
• Network hosts from ~/.config/roboterm/hosts.json

AppleScript

Full Cocoa scripting support with SDEF dictionary:

tell application "ROBOTERM"
    new window           -- creates a new window
    new tab              -- creates a new tab
    count windows        -- returns the number of open windows
    get version          -- returns "0.5.0"
end tell

Design

Industrial Cyberpunk theme matching RobotFlow Labs:

Token	Value	Usage
#FF3B00	Orange	Accent, selected state, local tabs
#050505	Void Black	Terminal background
#080808	Near Black	Sidebar background
#00FF88	Green	Running status, ROS2
#00DDFF	Cyan	SSH connections, Docker, cameras
#8B5CFF	Purple	GPU profiles
#FFB800	Yellow	Warnings, tools

• CaskaydiaMono Nerd Font (Oh My Posh support)
• No rounded corners — sharp, industrial
• Monospaced uppercase labels with letter-spacing

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap RobotFlow-Labs/roboterm
brew install --cask roboterm

Direct install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RobotFlow-Labs/roboterm/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Build from source

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/RobotFlow-Labs/roboterm.git
cd roboterm
./scripts/build.sh --install --run

After install

# Add rt CLI tools to your shell
echo 'source /Applications/ROBOTERM.app/Contents/Resources/roboterm-tools.sh' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
rt --version  # ROBOTERM v0.5.1

Architecture

ROBOTERM is a pure Swift macOS terminal application using SwiftTerm as the terminal engine (Core Text rendering, built-in PTY management). No C bridging headers, no Zig, no xcframeworks — just Swift Package Manager.

Component	Technology
Terminal engine	SwiftTerm (SPM)
UI framework	SwiftUI + AppKit
USB detection	IOKit (native)
Network probe	Network.framework (NWConnection)
Shell tools	Bash (30 rt commands)
AppleScript	Cocoa scripting (SDEF)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+T	New Tab
Cmd+W	Close Tab
Cmd+N	New Window
Cmd+D	Split Right
Cmd+Shift+D	Split Down
Cmd+=	Zoom In
Cmd+-	Zoom Out
Cmd+0	Reset Zoom
Ctrl+Cmd+F	Toggle Fullscreen
Cmd+Shift+L	ros2 launch
Cmd+Shift+B	colcon build

Roadmap

Shipped (v0.5.0)

• Pure Swift terminal (SwiftTerm engine)
• Agent launcher bar (Claude + Codex)
• Docker container management (tree view)
• 60+ ROS2 menu commands
• 31 rt CLI commands
• Docker-ROS2 bridge (rt connect)
• IOKit USB hotplug detection
• AppleScript support
• Session persistence (incl. SSH tabs)
• Hardware auto-detection
• Custom app icon
• Industrial Cyberpunk design
• ANIMA module management (per-module Docker/SSH/ROS2)
• Native SSH connections (direct PTY, sidebar panel, key files)
• 5-tab preferences (General, Appearance, Agents, ANIMA, SSH)
• Split panes (horizontal + vertical)
• Tab drag-and-drop reordering

Next (v0.6.0)

• RosSwift native integration (pub/sub without CLI)
• Inline camera/LiDAR preview
• Bag timeline viewer
• Recording indicator in status bar
• ROS2 node graph TUI visualization

License

Apache 2.0

Credits

• Terminal engine: SwiftTerm by Miguel de Icaza
• Built by RobotFlow Labs / AIFLOW LABS