late.sh

A cozy command-line clubhouse for computer people. Chat, music, games, art, coding, and tech news. Connect with any SSH client!

ssh late.sh

late.sh is a terminal-first social app: real-time chat, music, games, news, profiles, and a shared always-on space you can enter from any SSH client.

Status

This repository is the main codebase for late.sh.

• The project is open for source reading, local development, audits, and contributions.
• The public hosted late.sh service remains the canonical deployment.
• The code is source-available, not OSI open source, during the FSL protection period.

Read the details in LICENSE, the plain-English policy in LICENSING.md, and contribution rules in CONTRIBUTING.md.

What It Includes

• SSH TUI with dashboard, chat, profile, news, and arcade screens
• Real-time global chat and shared activity feed
• Audio streaming via Icecast/Liquidsoap, played by the paired CLI or the public /listen page
• Terminal games including 2048, Sudoku, Nonograms, Minesweeper, and Solitaire
• Web frontend for landing, profiles, and the token-less /listen page
• Companion CLI for local audio playback and synced visualizer data

Workspace

This is a Rust workspace with five crates:

Crate	Role
late-cli	Companion CLI for local audio playback, paired controls, and visualizer sync
late-core	Shared domain code, database layer, migrations, and infrastructure helpers
late-ssh	SSH server and terminal UI application
late-web	Web server, landing page, profiles/gallery, stream proxy, and the public /listen page
late-webview	Helper process hosting the official YouTube IFrame Player for the CLI

The stack is backed by PostgreSQL, Icecast, and Liquidsoap.

Quick Start

Try the live service:

ssh late.sh

The SSH login name is discarded rather than used as a public handle. On the first connection, a new account receives a random modifier-and-noun username; the username can still be changed later in Settings.

Run it yourself (requires Docker):

git clone https://github.com/mpiorowski/late-sh
cd late-sh
make start

Then connect to your local instance:

ssh localhost -p 2222

That's it. Postgres, Icecast, and Liquidsoap all come up automatically.

Companion CLI

Install the companion CLI for local audio playback and synced visualizer:

macOS / Linux / Termux:

curl -fsSL https://cli.late.sh/install.sh | bash

On Termux, the installer fetches the Android CLI build instead of the GNU/Linux one.

Windows PowerShell (x64):

irm https://cli.late.sh/install.ps1 | iex

mise (from the GitHub Release archives):

mise use -g github:mpiorowski/late-sh

Nix / NixOS:

nix run github:mpiorowski/late-sh#late

Or build it from source:

mise install        # optional — sets up the expected Rust toolchain
cargo build --release --bin late

Local Development

For development without Docker wrapping the Rust builds, you can run the infrastructure in Docker and the apps natively:

docker compose up -d postgres icecast liquidsoap
cargo run -p late-ssh
cargo run -p late-web

Local host development can use Cargo's normal defaults, including the standard repo-local target/ directory. The /app/target path is only for Docker/dev containers.

export CARGO_HOME=$HOME/.cargo

Use mise install to get the expected Rust toolchain, mold linker, and cargo-nextest.

To test newspaper scrolling in the Docker stack, run make seed-paper, then open /paper in the TUI. This replaces today's Reading and Outside sections with clearly marked sample text and enables the paper. Use make seed-paper PAPER_PARAGRAPHS=5 for a shorter edition (default: 100; range: 1–1000). Close and reopen /paper after reseeding; no restart is needed.

To test the Artboard gallery, run make seed-artboard after the current stack has applied its migrations. It creates 11 test accounts and 12 distinguishable, numbered ASCII pieces with applause and community/owner/moderator/admin rating scenarios, and enables the gallery. The first three have enough applause for monthly awards. Pieces 01–11 predate today UTC and qualify for the daily splash queue. Piece 01 is selected for today, unless a non-fixture piece owns the day. Use make seed-artboard ART_SPLASH_PIECE=3 for an NSFW-rated splash (the drawing itself is harmless), or choose any piece 1–11. Restart the SSH service with docker compose restart service-ssh and reconnect to refresh its splash cache.

Open Artboard (4), choose Newest in the gallery rail, and press n on a piece to vote. Fixture SSH identities are retained in the gitignored tmp/artboard-seed-keys/ directory. For example:

ssh -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -i tmp/artboard-seed-keys/art_artist1 -p 2222 localhost

Accounts are art_artist1–art_artist3, art_voter1–art_voter4, art_mod1/ art_mod2, and art_admin1/art_admin2, each with a matching key filename. Their tutorial is already marked completed, including when reseeding existing fixture accounts. They join the normal public auto-join rooms, including #lounge. From Home, select #lounge and enter /mod in its composer to open the staff console. Moderators and admins can also press m in a gallery list or full-piece view to open the console with art safety help and that piece's safety record. Rerunning restores these fixture pieces, applause, votes, marks, and staff roles; it preserves account preferences and all other users and art. Changes made while testing these pieces are reset by the next seed. Existing leaderboard seeding is separate, so art seeding does not rewrite game scores. The dev profile grants admin privileges to every session; set force_admin to false in late-ssh/src/config.rs when testing role-based permissions. Plain safety commands write moderator marks even for admin accounts; the admin keyword explicitly selects the admin tier.

Inside the /mod console:

artboard safety help
artboard safety view
artboard safety view @art_artist1
artboard safety view 0e77a39a
artboard safety nsfw 0e77a39a
artboard safety admin sfw 0e77a39a reviewed
artboard safety admin none 0e77a39a
artboard safety none 0e77a39a by @art_mod1

view shows a summary and review candidates; @user lists their hanging art, and an ID shows one piece's full safety record. none clears your mark at the selected tier. The per-piece record prints the full UUID on an Art id: line for copying into commands. Removing another account's mark, at either tier, with by is admin-only. Each account has one staff mark per piece; marking again replaces its mark and tier.

Verification

Run the local gate before opening a PR:

make check

This runs cargo fmt --check, then cargo clippy and cargo nextest across the whole workspace with --features otel. It is the full pre-merge sweep and the only place the otel (telemetry) build is exercised, since CI skips otel to stay fast; otel breakage is caught here or at the release build, never in prod. The local check starts a dedicated Compose Postgres project (late-check) on port 55433 and points DB-backed tests at it via TEST_DATABASE_URL. Override CHECK_INSTANCE or CHECK_PG_HOST_PORT if you need a parallel check database.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, but read the project policy first:

• CONTRIBUTING.md
• LICENSING.md
• LICENSE

This repository uses DCO sign-off for commits:

git commit -s

If you distribute a fork, do not present it as the official late.sh service or use the project branding as your own.

More Context

• CONTEXT.md — architecture, invariants, and working context. Written for LLMs — feed this to your AI editor for best results.
• CONTRIBUTING.md — workflow, test rules, module patterns, and AI-assisted development tips.
• THEME.md — how to contribute a new built-in SSH theme via PR.
• late-cli/README.md — CLI-specific usage and behavior.