What is ShellCanvas?

ShellCanvas is a desktop application you install on your own computer. It connects to a machine you already reach over SSH and gives that machine a graphical workspace: a file manager, terminals, a text editor and small apps, each in its own window. The remote machine keeps running exactly what it ran before — ShellCanvas installs nothing on it.

How it works

Everything you see runs locally. When you open a workspace, ShellCanvas makes an ordinary SSH connection and uses standard channels over it:

What you use	What ShellCanvas uses	What the server needs
Terminal windows	An SSH shell channel with a PTY	The SSH server it already runs
Files, Editor, transfers	SFTP over the same connection	The SFTP subsystem, which OpenSSH provides
Host details, remote settings	Small read-only commands, and hostnamectl or timedatectl only when you apply a change	A shell account; changing a setting needs root and systemd

The server never renders a screen and never runs a ShellCanvas process. It answers file and shell requests, and your computer draws the windows. That has three practical consequences:

• Nothing to install or clean up. No agent, no daemon, no extra port. If you can ssh to the machine, you can open it in ShellCanvas — including short-lived servers you would rather not modify.
• The interface stays responsive. Scrolling a folder or moving a window is local work. Only the data you ask for crosses the network.
• Your account's permissions apply, unchanged. A terminal is a real shell for the account you signed in as. ShellCanvas adds no privileges and removes none.

It is worth being clear about what ShellCanvas is not, because the category is crowded:

• Not a remote desktop. VNC and RDP stream pixels from a desktop session running on the server, which needs a graphical environment installed there. ShellCanvas needs none, and it does not display graphical applications that run on the server. The windows are ShellCanvas's own.
• Not a terminal with tabs. Files, the editor and apps are first-class windows that work at the same time as your shells, over the same connection.
• Not a sync tool. Files stay on the server. Transfers happen when you ask for them, and you can watch and cancel them.

A single ShellCanvas window can hold several machines at once. Each one gets a workspace: its own windows, folders, terminal output and layout. You switch between them from the top bar, and a workspace survives a dropped connection — reconnect and your windows, folder locations and unsaved editor drafts are still there.

Beyond the built-in apps, ShellCanvas is extensible in three ways: installable apps that run in their own frame with permissions you approve, themes that are plain data files, and connection adapters that can supply files, a console or settings from something other than SSH. Today SSH is the connection that ships with the desktop.

Boundaries

ShellCanvas is a public preview, and the honest picture matters more than a feature list:

• Desktop downloads cover three operating systems. Windows x64 has EXE/MSI installers, Linux x86_64 has AppImage/DEB/RPM packages, and macOS has separate Intel and Apple silicon DMGs. Windows installers are not code-signed and macOS builds are not notarized. Linux and macOS live SSH workflows still need broader hands-on testing.
• Remote support is proven where it has been tested. Files, terminal, editing and transfers are verified against an Ubuntu server. Other Linux distributions use the same SSH and SFTP paths but have not been tested. Browsing and a shell on a macOS server are confirmed; writes and transfers there are not. A Windows OpenSSH server has been exercised manually for file browsing, with broader coverage still pending.
• SFTP provides the full file manager. Without it, compatible Linux shells can offer limited browsing and individual-file transfers, and some RouterOS hosts can offer read-only folder browsing. If no fallback works, terminals remain independent.
• Saving without atomic rename needs explicit consent. ShellCanvas prefers [email protected]. If an SFTP server lacks it, each non-atomic replacement warns about the risk of a partial file and requires Save anyway; declining preserves your draft.
• Installed apps run on Windows, Linux and macOS. Native app-frame probes passed on Windows, Linux and Apple silicon. Broader sessions on Linux and macOS remain to be tested, and containment of deliberately hostile code is not claimed.
• Connection adapters are trusted native code. They run with your operating-system permissions. A package hash identifies content; it does not authenticate a publisher.

Where a limit has a number — file sizes, queue depths, item counts — it appears on the page for that feature and in Compatibility and known limitations.

Related guides

• Installation and builds — choose a Windows, Linux or macOS package, or build from source.
• Requirements and compatibility — what your computer and your server need.
• Your first connection — add a host, check its fingerprint and open a workspace.
• Hosts, connections and workspaces — the model behind the windows.
• System architecture — how the parts fit together.