ChannelTerm

What ChannelTerm does

ChannelTerm connects a human terminal and an MCP client to the same serial or SSH Session. Both can observe the device's terminal activity, while a human can continue using the attached console as an AI agent operates the board. AI command activity appears as a local activity block rather than being inserted into the device's raw byte stream.

The project is aimed at board bring-up and embedded Linux debugging. It supports serial consoles, SSH sessions, GDB-based debugging, U-Boot workflows, diagnostic ZIP exports, and file transfers. Serial transfers can use SHA-256 checks; dedicated SFTP or SCP connections are also available.

How it works

The channelterm attach command opens a device connection and attaches the current terminal. For a shared attachment, ChannelTerm can start a temporary local HTTP MCP Session Host automatically. An AI client configured for that Host can then create or join the same Session. Sessions have identifiers such as SER-1 or opaque IDs; labels are display names rather than identifiers.

A persistent Host can instead be started with channelterm mcp --transport http. This allows Sessions to remain available independently of the shell that created an attachment. The default endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:37099/mcp. Each client reads independently, so an AI reader does not consume output from the human's view.

The MCP interface supports terminal commands and interactive terminal input through terminal_exec and terminal_write. External debugger output follows separate visibility rules from ordinary terminal output. GDB can work through a serial bridge, a managed setup, or the board's network connection.

Setup and configuration

Prebuilt archives are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS on amd64 and arm64. After extracting an archive, run channelterm install; the installer creates the channelterm and cterm commands and can update the user PATH. Building from source requires Go 1.26 or newer.

Run channelterm init --mcp to configure an AI client for the HTTP Host. The setup stores a local Bearer credential. A quick shared serial workflow can start with a command such as channelterm attach /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 115200 on Linux, or the corresponding device path on Windows or macOS.

Limitations and notes

The temporary Host and its Sessions stop when the attachment that created them exits. Use a persistent Host when other shells or clients must continue using the Session. The HTTP listener uses a per-user Bearer token and defaults to loopback access. LAN access requires the same token, a reachable address, TLS, and separate network controls; the endpoint should not be exposed without those protections.

A private attachment can be opened with --private when MCP sharing is not wanted. The install and uninstall commands preserve user data by default, while uninstall --purge requires confirmation before deleting configuration, device state, and the local HTTP credential.