HoTTY is an open-source terminal emulator for Windows. Connect over SSH, Telnet, Serial, WSL, or a local shell; arrange sessions in a multi-pane workspace; and call on the AI provider of your choice — only when you want it.
The protocols a Windows engineer reaches for day to day — each with the connection options the app actually exposes.
Host key verification with fingerprint display, private-key authentication, and configurable KEX, cipher, MAC, and host-key algorithms.
Plain Telnet with selectable text encoding per session — UTF-8, Shift_JIS, or EUC-JP.
USB / COM console access with configurable baud rate, data bits, parity, stop bits, and flow control.
Open any installed Windows Subsystem for Linux distribution directly, with distribution selection.
cmd, PowerShell / pwsh, and Git Bash run as ordinary sessions in the same workspace.
Reach Compute Engine instances through a Google Cloud IAP tunnel — no public IP needed, authenticated by gcloud. Pick project, zone, and instance.
Split the window into a grid, dock tool sidebars on any edge, and move sessions around by keyboard or drag.
1×1, 1×2, 2×1, 2×2, 2×3, and 3×2. The active pane is outlined and lit with an accent glow.
Collapsible left, right, top, and bottom panels, each resizable by a grip strip.
Move pane focus by keyboard; drag tabs to reorder them or to assign a session to a specific pane.
Bring your own API keys and pick a provider and model per session. AI is optional, and it never executes anything you haven't allowed.
A dedicated chat pane with streaming responses, switchable personas, and per-message token and cost tracking.
Right-click selected terminal output and type a free-form question about it — explain an error, summarize a log.
The AI proposes and can run commands — gated by a managed Whitelist / Blacklist and a safety classifier, so risky commands aren't auto-executed.
Let the AI follow live terminal output and send captured logs to the model to surface anomalies as they happen.
Four built-in utilities that live in the same layout as your sessions.
Browse and read the session log files HoTTY writes.
Open, edit, and save files, with line-ending control.
Browse directories and drives; open files straight into the editor.
Watch multiple targets at once with configurable intervals.
Run multiple windows in one process, ask the AI about any output with a right-click, and browse device web UIs inline.
Open several HoTTY windows in one process — New Window or Ctrl+Shift+N. Each keeps its own panes and terminal sessions, while your settings, theme, host tree and bookmarks stay shared and in sync across every window.
Select terminal output, right-click, and type a free-form question in the inline Ask AI box — Enter sends. HoTTY opens the AI Chat and sends your question with the selected text. Click a Terminal Marker first to grab a whole output block.
Open device web admin UIs in an embedded Edge WebView2 pane beside your terminals, with folder bookmarks and saved, encrypted logins. Now with per-page zoom, one-click Open All for a bookmark folder, and clear-browsing-data from the ⋯ More menu.
The storage and verification details, stated plainly.
Stored credentials are encrypted with Windows DPAPI.
SSH host keys are verified, with the fingerprint shown for confirmation.
Multi-line clipboard content prompts a confirmation before it reaches the terminal.
Export and import your host tree as an encrypted .htree file.
Write a session to a log file, with per-session text encoding.
Configure KEX, cipher, MAC, and host-key algorithms; GCE IAP tunnels are supported.
Free and open source under GPL-3.0. Download a build from GitHub Releases, or build it yourself from source.