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jelly-ssh/jelly-ssh

Jelly is a SSH social network
Source code at GitHub null
jelly-ssh/jelly-ssh.json
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  "description": "Jelly is a SSH social network",
  "fullName": "jelly-ssh/jelly-ssh",
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  "name": "jelly-ssh",
  "pushedAt": "2026-04-01T14:43:54Z",
  "stargazersCount": 142,
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  "updatedAt": "2026-05-19T05:15:33Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/jelly-ssh/jelly-ssh"
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Jelly

Section titled “Jelly”

![Jelly connect screen]!(media/connectscreen.png)

Jelly is a social network that only lives in your terminal.

No feeds full of ads, no tracking, or god awful algorithms pushing asinine content; just people hanging out over SSH, posting messages, creating channels, and leaving notes on each other’s profiles.

Check out Jelly:

  • How to connect
  • FAQ / status
  • Screenshots & updates

![Main feed]!(media/mainfeed1.png)

How to connect

Section titled “How to connect”

“if you discover it, you can join.” If you can get into an SSH server, you’re in.

1️⃣ Generate an SSH key (if you don’t already have one)

Section titled “1️⃣ Generate an SSH key (if you don’t already have one)”

Linux / macOS:

Terminal window
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "jelly"

Windows (PowerShell):

Terminal window
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "jelly"

Accept the defaults and don’t lose your key. Jelly uses it as your identity.

2️⃣ Connect to Jelly

Section titled “2️⃣ Connect to Jelly”
Terminal window
ssh jellyshell.dev
  • AUTHENTICITY
  • When you first connect to jelly you’ll see a fingerprint verification prompt. Here’s the official server fingerprint so you can verify you’re connecting to the real thing: SHA256:cRyhCXoOnf2tBZQ66BGulGxKzbNcaUEar+4FJxsYvL8

If yours matches, you’re good. If it doesn’t, don’t connect and let me know.

  • Auth: SSH public key only. No passwords, no web signup form
  • Your identity is mapped from your SSH public key fingerprint
  • First join: you get a guest-style username (e.g. guest_1234), which you can rename with /nick

If your terminal supports decent UTF‑8 and 256‑color/truecolor, you should be fine. (If something looks wrong, try another terminal and let me know in #suggestions.)

Using Jelly on multiple devices

Section titled “Using Jelly on multiple devices”

If you want to log in from a second machine without copying your SSH key around, just run /addkey on your main device. It gives you a short code to run on the other machine and that’s it, both keys link to the same account.

What you can do inside Jelly

Section titled “What you can do inside Jelly”

Global feed & home feed

Section titled “Global feed & home feed”
  • Post messages into a live-updating global timeline
  • Scroll back through recent posts
  • Switch to a home feed that only shows channels you’ve joined. Ctrl+X toggles between the two

#Hashtag “channels”

Section titled “#Hashtag “channels””
  • Use tags to directly go to channels like #tui, #feedback, #gaming, etc.
  • Switch views with commands you can find in /help

Direct messages

Section titled “Direct messages”
  • /msg NAME to open a DM with someone
  • DMs are encrypted at rest (AES-GCM)
  • Unread indicators show up in your sidebar so you don’t miss anything

Notifications

Section titled “Notifications”
  • You get notified when someone DMs you, mentions you, signs your guestbook, or adds you to their Top 8
  • Press N to open the notifications panel
  • If your terminal supports desktop popups (WezTerm, Kitty, etc.), toggle them on with Y in the notifications panel and you’ll get OS-level notifications
  • You can also set a webhook with /webhook URL to pipe notifications to ntfy.sh, Discord, Slack, etc.

Profiles

Section titled “Profiles”

![Profile screen]!(media/profile1.png)

  • Every profile has a guestbook

  • /sign message on someone’s profile to leave a note

  • Recent signatures show up on their page

  • /status text set a short status line under your name

  • Profile themes with different animated backgrounds

  • Bio to let people know about yourself

ASCII avatars

Section titled “ASCII avatars”
  • Edit your avatar in a built-in ASCII editor
  • Small size + printable characters only so it renders correctly in lots of terminals

Top 8

Section titled “Top 8”
  • /top8 NAME — add someone to your Top 8
  • /rmtop8 NAME — remove them
  • Shows on your profile

Blackboard

Section titled “Blackboard”
  • /blackboard a shared ASCII canvas everyone can draw on together

Handy commands

Section titled “Handy commands”

From the main feed:

/help              show commands
/global            jump back to global feed
Ctrl+X             toggle between global and home feed
/view NAME         open another user's profile
/msg NAME          open a DM
/top8 NAME         add to Top 8
/rmtop8 NAME       remove from Top 8
/webhook URL       set a webhook for notifications
/addkey            link a new device to your account
/block NAME        hide a user's posts
/quit, /exit       leave Jelly
Ctrl+C             also leaves Jelly (classic)

On profiles:

/sign message      sign someone's guestbook
Ctrl+U             edit your PFP (when viewing your own profile)
Esc                back to feed

Tech stack (for the curious)

Section titled “Tech stack (for the curious)”

How Jelly was built:

  • Language: Go
  • Terminal UI: Bubble Tea + Lip Gloss
  • SSH server: Wish
  • Auth: SSH public keys only
  • DMs: At rest encryption
  • Rate limiting: per-IP sliding window
  • Zero-downtime deploys: tableflip so existing sessions stay connected when the server updates

Status & roadmap

Section titled “Status & roadmap”

Current status

Section titled “Current status”
  • ✅ Public SSH server
  • ✅ People actively hanging out and testing
  • ✅ DMs, notifications, webhooks, multi-device keys
  • 🚧 Features & UX still changing

Rough roadmap

Section titled “Rough roadmap”

No promises, but things I’d like to explore:

  • Better help / onboarding flow for new users
  • Soft moderation tools (mutes / filters)
  • Optional per-user notes / “mini blogs” on profiles
  • Exportable data / backups
  • End-to-end Encryption for DMs

Feedback & bugs

Section titled “Feedback & bugs”

If you’ve tried Jelly and something broke (or was just weird), you can:

  • Open an issue on this repo
  • Or hop into Jelly and drop a note in #suggestions

Screenshots, terminal info (kitty, iTerm2, Windows Terminal, WezTerm, etc.), and OS details really help when debugging rendering issues.

Support

Section titled “Support”

Right now Jelly is just one person paying for a small box on the internet because it makes me happy.

If you want to support it:

  • Show up and hang out
  • Tell other terminal-obsessed friends
  • Star this repo if you like it

I may add a donation link (Ko‑fi / Buy Me a Coffee / etc.) here later once things settle down.

Credits

Section titled “Credits”

Jelly is built and hosted by a single human who likes:

  • terminals
  • and the idea that not everything online has to feel like a growth-hacked product

If that speaks to you, you’re exactly who I built this for.

If you made it this far, you probably already know how to find the server.

![Jelly demo]!(media/jelly.gif)