ls + ssh = lssh

lssh is a terminal-native remote access suite for SSH workflows, cloud inventories, and provider-backed connectors.

It lets you select hosts from OpenSSH config, lssh config, or provider inventories, then operate them through native SSH or connector backends such as AWS SSM, EC2 Instance Connect Endpoint, WinRM, Telnet, and custom providers.

Use it for interactive shells, parallel commands, mux workspaces, file transfer, sync, mount, and monitoring. Connector-backed hosts expose only the operations their connector supports.

• works with your existing SSH config
• interactive host selection
• parallel command execution

Install

Homebrew

brew install blacknon/lssh/lssh

Go

go install github.com/blacknon/lssh/cmd/lssh@latest

Provider-backed inventory and connector features use separate provider executables. If you install only cmd/lssh, those provider binaries are not installed automatically.

For local development, install the bundled providers with:

mise run provider_install

For release builds, either install the all-in-one lssh-complete_* archive or add the matching lssh-providers_* archive from GitHub Releases.

For more installation details, including other options and platform-specific notes, see docs/install.md.

Quick start

Already using ~/.ssh/config?

Just run:

lssh

Want to generate an lssh config from your existing SSH config?

lssh --generate-lssh-conf > ~/.lssh.toml

Basic workflow

lssh is built for a simple workflow:

1. list hosts from SSH config
2. pick one or more hosts
3. open a shell or run a command

Examples

Interactive host picker lssh Select one or more hosts from the TUI.	Parallel command execution lssh -p tail -f /var/log/syslog Pick hosts and run the same command across them.
Mux workflow lssh -P Open the multi-pane terminal workflow.	Mux workflow with command lssh -P 'htop' Start the mux UI and launch a command immediately.

You can still target a single host directly when you already know where to connect:

lssh -H my-server

For more details about config formats and settings, see cmd/lssh/README.md.

Demo

Want to try lssh quickly with a ready-to-run local playground? Start with demo/README.md. For the telnet connector + multi-hop provider flow, use demo-telnet-provider/README.md.

OpenSSH config and lssh config

lssh supports both your existing OpenSSH config and its own config format.

If you want to get started quickly, you can keep using ~/.ssh/config as-is. If you want richer host metadata and workflow-oriented settings, you can move to an lssh config instead.

You can also generate an lssh config from your existing SSH config:

lssh --generate-lssh-conf > ~/.lssh.toml

Even after moving to lssh config, you can still point it at your existing OpenSSH config and load hosts from there:

[sshconfig.default]
path = "~/.ssh/config"

For more details about config formats and settings, see docs/configuration.md.

Providers

lssh can work with more than static SSH config entries. Providers let it pull hosts from external inventory sources, resolve secrets just before connect, and use non-SSH connection backends such as cloud-managed connectors.

In v0.10.0, provider-backed inventory and secret workflows are best treated as beta. Connector-backed access beyond native SSH is still experimental, especially for cloud-managed runtimes and non-SSH backends.

If you want to try provider-oriented flows locally, start from these demos:

• demo/README.md: core SSH, proxy chains, and general multi-host workflow examples
• demo-telnet-provider/README.md: provider-managed telnet connector flow, including direct telnet access and telnet behind a double SSH hop

For the provider architecture and protocol overview, start with provider/README.md. Category details are also documented under inventory, connector, secret, and mixed.

Bundled providers

These provider implementations are currently bundled in this repository.

Inventory

Connector

Mixed

Secret

Tools in the lssh suite

The lssh project includes multiple tools for SSH-centered workflows.

lssh core / stable Interactive SSH access, parallel commands, and forwarding modes.	lscp transfer / stable SCP-style copy over SSH/SFTP, including remote-to-remote transfers.	lsftp transfer / stable Interactive SFTP shell for browsing and transferring files.
lsshell sysadmin / beta Parallel interactive shell with broadcast and targeted commands.	lsmux sysadmin / beta Pane-based SSH workspace for multi-host terminal workflows.	lsmon monitor / beta Multi-host monitoring UI over SSH without extra remote agents.
lssync transfer / beta Tree sync over SSH/SFTP with daemon and bidirectional modes.	lsdiff sysadmin / beta Compare remote files from multiple hosts in a synchronized TUI.	lspipe sysadmin / alpha Persistent host sessions reusable from local pipelines and automation.
lsshfs transfer / beta Mount a remote directory through `FUSE on Linux` or `NFS on macOS`.

Docs

• docs/README.md: documentation index
• cmd/lssh/README.md: lssh command details, forwarding, and local rc usage
• cmd/README.md: command overview
• CONTRIBUTING.md: development and contribution guidelines

Related projects

• go-sshlib: Go library for SSH connections, command execution, and interactive shells
• tvxterm: tvxterm provides terminal widgets for tview
• boco: Bash Shell Function's Fuzzy Finder.

Alternatives

If you are evaluating lssh, these projects are also worth a look. They overlap with parts of the suite, but each usually covers a narrower slice of the overall workflow.

How the lssh suite is different

• lssh combines host selection, interactive SSH, parallel command execution, forwarding, and connector/provider-backed targets.
• lsshell focuses on parallel interactive shell workflows instead of just launching many terminals.
• lscp, lsftp, and lssync cover file transfer and synchronization as first-class commands in the same suite.
• lsmux provides a pane-based SSH workspace rather than only session templating.
• lspipe keeps selected hosts reusable from local pipelines and automation.

License

MIT

Author

blacknon