Privacy You Can Trust

Knowing what information your tools collect is crucial. Open-source terminals make it easy to verify exactly what data is being gathered and how it's used. There's no need to take a company's word for it; the proof is in the code. Without access to the source code, “unintended” bugs or features could lead to data being collected without your knowledge or consent, leaving little room for accountability. This level of assurance is especially important for terminals, which handle sensitive information and have extensive system permissions.

Security Through Transparency

When it comes to tools that have deep access to your system, security is paramount. Open-source terminals offer transparency that closed-source alternatives simply can't match. By allowing anyone to inspect the code, open-source projects enable the community to identify and fix vulnerabilities swiftly. This collective vigilance ensures that security isn't just a feature—it's a fundamental aspect of the software's DNA.

A Community-Driven Future

One of the most significant advantages of open source is the power of community contributions. Developers worldwide can fix bugs, add features, and optimize performance. This collective effort accelerates innovation and leads to a more robust, versatile tool. When the community drives development, software can evolve more quickly to meet the needs of its users, not just the goals of a single company.

Project Continuity and Ownership

With open-source software, you're not at the mercy of a company's shifting priorities or business decisions. Even with a company's assurances, they could change the terms, introduce fees, or discontinue the product altogether. Open source ensures that the code remains accessible to everyone, allowing the project to live on regardless of what happens to its original creators. This gives you the confidence to invest time and resources into customizing your terminal without worrying about unexpected changes or limitations down the line.

Supporting the Open Source Movement

Choosing open-source tools contributes to a larger movement that values collaboration, transparency, and shared growth. It's about more than just software; it's about fostering a culture that prioritizes collective advancement over proprietary gains. By supporting open-source projects, you're investing in a future where technology is accessible and adaptable for everyone.

Experience the Difference with Wave

We've built Wave Terminal with these principles in mind. Wave is a modern, open-source, cross-platform terminal designed to enhance your productivity without compromising on security or privacy.

Join us in shaping the future of terminal applications. Try Wave today, contribute to the project, or simply explore what a modern open-source terminal can offer. Together, we can create tools that not only meet our needs but also embody the values we believe in.

If you’re interested, please give us a star on Github. You can download Wave for macOS, Linux, and Windows at waveterm.dev.

Stay focused. Stay productive. Choose open source.

A Command Line Reimagined

Traditional command-line interfaces (CLIs) are powerful, but they often require switching between different applications for tasks like previewing files, browsing the web, or using AI tools. Wave brings all these functions together in one place with a flexible layout and keyboard shortcuts. You can preview remote files, pull up documentation, or browse the web without ever leaving your terminal. With integrated widgets and seamless navigation, Wave keeps you in the flow so you can get more done.

Faster, More Compatible, and Windows Native

Wave v0.8 is faster and more flexible than ever. It supports your standard terminal prompts and command completions while working smoothly with all shells (not just bash/zsh), removing the friction some users experienced with ohmyzsh packages. For the first time, Wave also runs natively on Windows, giving you a consistent experience across all major operating systems.

This is Just the Beginning

Wave is open source and built with the community in mind. We're expanding its capabilities, adding support for creating your own widgets, and rolling out even more productivity features. Expect deeper AI integrations, better connections with external systems, and more ways to streamline your workflow. We're excited to continue evolving Wave, with your input helping to shape its future.

If you’re interested, please give us a star at https://github.com/wavetermdev/waveterm . You can download Wave at https://waveterm.dev (available for MacOS, Linux, and Windows).

At Wave, we wanted to ensure that users have a choice around whatever AI tools they bring to Wave, not just bolt on the latest AI trend. That's why we’re excited to announce the introduction of BYOLLM, or "Bring Your Own Large Language Model." Whether it be for security, privacy, or even ethical reasons, this new feature enables users to use whatever LLM provider they like, right inside of Wave.

At the moment, Wave supports four local LLM providers — Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, and LocalAI — with the ability to bring your own, OpenAI API-compatible (local or cloud-based) LLM provider if it's not officially supported. Each of these providers supports a wide range of models, essentially allowing users to bring hundreds of LLMs to their computers through this integration.

Getting Started with Local LLMs

Setting up your own LLM in Wave is a simple process. Start by checking out our supported LLM providers, and from there select your LLM provider and follow the instructions. Configuration usually consists of setting just two parameters for local models: aibaseurl and aimodel. These parameters can be set either through the UI or from the command line, making it easy for users to get started with their preferred LLM.

For example, to configure Ollama, simply navigate to the "Settings" menu and set the AI Base URL to http://localhost:11434/v1 and the AI Model to any model you've downloaded using Ollama. In this example, we're using mistral.

Once configured, you can start using your LLM in Wave. Simply ask a question using the command box (or use the /chat command), such as "How do I build a container from a dockerfile?", and Wave AI will provide an answer using your selected LLM.

The configuration process is similar for all supported LLM providers but varies slightly. Be sure to check out the detailed documentation for each provider to learn about their specific options and requirements.

Getting Started with Cloud-based LLM's

At current, Wave only supports OpenAI API-compatible LLMs. However, if you or your team has an account with OpenAI you can easily configure Wave to use GPT-4 (or the newly released GPT-4o) and other fine-tuned models for added flexibility, privacy, and to circumnavigate our current rate limit of 200 requests per day.

We’re also currently testing Perplexity, as it's an OpenAI-compatible cloud-based model that many users have requested. Make sure you follow our social media (X and LinkedIn) pages to be notified when we announce its support.

The Future of BYOLLM

In the coming weeks and months, we hope to expand our BYOLLM offerings to include support for more commercial cloud-based models like Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and more to ensure that you have access to the latest trends in LLMs, and can tailor your AI experience to your specific needs and concerns.

Lastly, we’re committed to expanding how WaveAI is surfaced in the product to make it more useful. At the moment, Wave AI is limited to the command box and /chat command, but we are currently developing more ways to use AI for various tasks like troubleshooting, autocomplete, and much more. We think the terminal has a lot to gain from the latest trends in AI, and are excited to see how it can transform the terminal experience.

Wrapping Up

We couldn't be more excited about BYOLLM, and the future of our AI integrations to come. Download Wave today to try our latest integrations and experience the power of BYOLLM firsthand — we can't wait to see what you'll create!

Also, feel free to join the Wave community on Discord if you need assistance setting up one of these integrations, want to suggest additional LLMs for future inclusion, or simply wish to connect with other Wave users.

UI: A Fresh Look and Feel

Wave Terminal now sports a new, cleaner, and flatter design, reducing visual clutter and updating colors to enhance focus on your work. With the introduction of a fully collapsible left sidebar and a command input that spans the full width of the terminal, your workspace is now more flexible and distraction-free. We've also added more customizability around your choice of editor settings — namely with the ability to switch between "JetBrains Mono" and "Hack" fonts for the terminal text.

Lastly, the introduction of a light mode theme offers an alternative to the classic dark mode, catering to different user preferences. Please note that this feature is currently in beta, and our team is diligently working to enhance its stability and performance. We warmly welcome your feedback and suggestions on this and any other themes you'd like to see in future updates.

Backend Innovations: Smoother Connections and Updates

The connections backend has been entirely reworked using Go's standard crypto/ssh library, providing more predictable behavior across systems and resolving numerous connection-related issues. This overhaul simplifies interactions with interactive logins through the use of popups for password entry, OTPs, and other server inputs.

Additionally, Wave now supports optional auto-updates for MacOS and Linux, ensuring you're always working with the latest features and fixes. Linux users will also appreciate the new packages available, including .deb, .rpm, AppImage, and Pacman, making installation and updates smoother than ever. Note that we are also working on packages for yum, aur, and dpkg, so keep your eye out for those soon.

AI and Code Editing Enhancements

Additionally, the "Wave AI" panel has received significant updates to improve your interaction with AI-assisted coding. Simply click the "Wave AI" button — (Shortcut: Control + Space) in the command input box to start an interactive session.

Moreover, recognizing the diverse needs and preferences of our users and adhering to our "open-source first" ethos, we are actively working on integrations for other Large Language Models (LLMs). Whatever your needs are—whether for cutting-edge models, privacy considerations, or ethical reasons—our upcoming integrations will enable you to bring your preferred LLM (BYOLLM) directly to Wave Terminal.

Possible integrations on the horizon include Gemini, Claude, and even local LLMs like OpenLLaMA — promising a future where Wave Terminal is your central hub for cutting-edge AI-assisted coding, tailored precisely to your needs and preferences.

Noteworthy Bug Fixes

This release addresses several key issues, improving overall stability and performance. Notable fixes include the resolution of MacOS path reordering (GitHub #368), enhancements to the display of Conda environments (GitHub #304), and a new slash command (GitHub #278) (/reset: CWD) to help when your current working directory is deleted.

Additionally, improvements in command history dropdowns and clearer indications of commands exiting with non-zero exit codes significantly enhance usability.

Looking Ahead

As we celebrate the release of v0.7.0, we're already looking forward to bringing you customizable themes, full terminal font customization, custom keybindings, and much more in the upcoming v0.7.x series. These forthcoming features, based on your feedback and suggestions, promise to make Wave Terminal even more adaptable to your coding style and preferences.

Join the Wave

We're immensely grateful for the community's feedback and support with this release. Stay tuned for further updates and don't hesitate to share your thoughts with us on Discord or GitHub and give us a star to show your support for Open Source!

Download Wave:https://www.waveterm.dev

The problems with the Terminal

When Mike would ask terminal users if they have any problems at first they would say everything was great. But once they stopped to think about it they’d start listing the issues: copy and paste, lots of context switching, command history, disconnections, etc.

There has been little innovation in terminals and Mike puts this down to a "chicken and egg" situation. It comes down to the fact that there is a terminal and a shell and traditionally the terminal was a hardware terminal so all the "smarts" went into the shell. As Mike points out:

"Now if the shell wants to do something new, all the terminals have to support it and if the terminal wants to do something new the shells would need to support it so no one ever made any progress." With Wave, Mike is looking to break that 50 year old "chicken and egg" problem, allowing the terminal to be smart, independent of the shell. He approached it by thinking how a terminal would be designed from scratch with today’s technology.

The right ways AI can help developers be productive

If you were to set out to develop a terminal from scratch using today’s technology, AI and specifically the new GenAI technology available today would be powerful additions. "AI is going to be a big enhancement to developers" Mike says and then goes on to elaborate on 2 key aspects of programming where AI can help the most immediately:

1. The Mechanical Aspect - help turning thoughts into code quickly or the mechanical transformation of what’s in developers’ heads into code

2. The Recall Aspect - remembering functions, api functionality, etc. Traditionally senior engineers have been the guardrails for an organization’s best practices and AI can increasingly play a role here.

Programming is alive and well and we need to focus on using AI in the most effective ways, namely:

• Reducing repetitive work

• Helping people learn

• Increasing institutional knowledge

The Terminal Renaissance

Mike finishes off the podcast sharing his love for Terminals and his vision for the future:

“I really want to see a renaissance of the terminal. I really want to see a shift back to the CLI from the web. I think a lot of applications have moved to the web and it is very siloed. What was so great about the terminal was commands could be composed and they could be scripted. If we can bring some of that UI goodness, some of this AI, some of these more interesting concepts to the Terminal we can really see the Terminal take off and be a new remade application.”

And of course Mike is rooting for Wave to do this and leading the way with the open source project and community. You can listen to the full podcast here:

Links:

• Wave Terminal: https://www.waveterm.dev/

• Github Repo: https://github.com/wavetermdev/waveterm

• HeavyBit’s GenerationShip Podcast (includes transcript): Ep #4 Reimagining the Terminal

The Problem

There are two problems with this approach. The first is that history is segregated by user and machine. The second, is that the current format doesn't allow commands to be associated with rich metadata. To me, it feels obvious that a comprehensive record of every command typed into our terminals — both local and remote — complete with metadata like working directory, user, host, timestamp, command duration, and exit code, should be readily searchable and available at all times.

How Wave is Solving It

Unified history, with rich metadata, is one of the core features we've built into Wave Terminal. I've been using Wave as my primary terminal for the past year and have over 25k history items (5706 unique commands). I can easily search for commands that were run on my local Macbook, or on remote Linux boxes. I also have all of the history for VMs and Docker instances that have long since been terminated or re-imaged.

Over the past year, this history feature has been a lifesaver. It's helped me recall everything from the steps to create a Mac 'icns' file to the command sequence for manually notarizing a Mac application. It's also invaluable for tasks like identifying the specific packages needed to reinstall a remote Linux box, enabling seamless recreation after termination.

Wave's history feature also works hand-in-hand with another of Wave's core features: persistent tabs. Because each command is indexed to the specific tab in which it was executed, we get a command history for each tab that persists, even across disconnections, terminal restarts, and machine reboots. This means that my AWS deploy commands, executed in their own dedicated tab, are neatly separated from my git commits or local builds, which are run in separate tabs. This separation helps to keep my terminal more organized and efficient.

The Future

But there's more to come! Wave's mission is to create a more accessible, batteries included, terminal experience, focused on improving developer experience. We're developing features like more advanced history search, tagging for history items, a straightforward editing function to clear unwanted entries, opt-in AI integration, and options to import and export command sets in an open universal format.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on Wave Terminal. Try it out by downloading the latest version at https://waveterm.dev/download (available for MacOS and Linux) and share your feedback, report bugs, or suggest features in our Discord Channel or on GitHub.

That’s why we built Wave, to keep what’s best about the command line while adding the power of the open web.

What is Wave?

Wave is a cross-platform open-source terminal that supports inline rendering, modern UI, and persistent sessions. Wave was built to keep what’s best about the command line while adding the power of the open web. Wave has inline renderers for terminal content and remote files to help keep you in flow and reduce context switches. We have 5 initial plugins: remote file editor, markdown viewer, image viewer, CSV viewer, and a ChatGPT interface, with more coming soon.

But Wave isn’t just a simple renderer trick. We’ve been working on Wave for over a year and have over 1200 commits. We’re on a mission to improve terminal DevEx across the board and fix all sorts of terminal micro-frustrations. Wave manages your remote SSH connections, seamlessly restoring sessions, persisting sessions, and giving you a searchable contextual history of all the commands you’ve run, across all of your sessions and remote machines.

What is Wave built on?

We’re proudly built on Electron (just like VSCode, Slack, and Discord) with all of the network code and heavy lifting done in a local Go backend. This enables us to deliver a consistent cross-platform experience and the ability to leverage high-quality web components for our UI and plugins.What's next?

Is Wave open-source?

Openness is a core part of our mission. Our code is open source (Apache 2.0), and our plugins are written in TypeScript/React. We don’t require an email, login, or payment to use our terminal (it is free as in speech and as in beer).

What platforms does Wave work on?

Wave works on MacOS as well as Linux (preliminary support). We have a Windows WSL port coming soon.

How will Wave make money?

We get asked this question a lot! Basic rule of thumb is if it runs on your own computer with your own resources it will be free, if it hits our servers using our resources it will be paid. Yes, we do plan on making money in the future, through opt-in team collaboration features.

What features do you have?

Check out our Wave Terminal demo video to get an overview of our initial features.

What's Next?

We're just getting started. If you’re interested, please give it a try and give us a Star on Github to show your support for Open Source! Feedback, bugs, feature requests, and contributions are all welcome. Happy Hacking!

https://www.waveterm.dev | https://github.com/wavetermdev/waveterm