blit

Computer agents can jump to https://install.blit.sh/SKILL.md

Terminal streaming for browsers and AI agents. One binary, nothing to configure.

Try it now — no install needed:

docker run --rm grab/blit-demo

Or install and run locally:

curl -sf https://install.blit.sh | sh
blit open # opens a browser

Share a terminal over WebRTC:

blit share # prints a URL anyone can open

Connect to a remote host over SSH:

blit open --ssh myhost
blit --ssh myhost --socket /tmp/custom.sock list   # specific remote socket

Install blit on a remote host:

blit install --ssh myhost

Control terminals programmatically:

blit start htop # start a terminal, print its ID
blit show 1     # dump current terminal text
blit send 1 "q" # send keystrokes

The server auto-starts when needed.

Install

curl -sf https://install.blit.sh | sh

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install indent-com/tap/blit

Debian / Ubuntu (APT)

curl -fsSL https://install.blit.sh/blit.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/blit.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/blit.gpg arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] https://install.blit.sh/ stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/blit.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install blit

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://install.blit.sh/install.ps1 | iex

This downloads blit.exe to %LOCALAPPDATA%\blit\bin and adds it to your user PATH. Set BLIT_INSTALL_DIR to override the install location.

Nix

nix profile install github:indent-com/blit#blit

Or jump to nix/README.md for nix-darwin / NixOS service configuration.

How it works

blit hosts PTYs and tracks full parsed terminal state. For each connected browser it computes a binary diff against what that browser last saw and sends only the delta — LZ4-compressed, with scrolling encoded as copy-rect operations. WebGL-rendered in the browser.

Each client is paced independently based on render metrics it reports back: display rate, frame apply time, backlog depth. A phone on 3G doesn't stall a workstation on localhost. The focused session gets full frame rate; background sessions throttle down. Keystrokes go straight to the PTY — latency is bounded by link RTT.

blit open opens the browser with an embedded gateway. For persistent multi-user browser access, blit-gateway is a standalone proxy that handles passphrase auth, serves the web app, and optionally enables QUIC. blit-server can also run standalone for headless/daemon use. For embedding in your own app, @blit-sh/react and @blit-sh/solid provide framework bindings.

For wire protocol details, frame encoding, and transport internals, see ARCHITECTURE.md.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
BLIT_SOCK	$TMPDIR/blit.sock, /tmp/blit-$USER.sock, /run/blit/$USER.sock, $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/blit.sock, or /tmp/blit.sock	Unix socket path
BLIT_SCROLLBACK	10000	Scrollback rows per PTY
BLIT_HUB	hub.blit.sh	Signaling hub URL for WebRTC sharing
BLIT_INSTALL_DIR	%LOCALAPPDATA%\blit\bin (Windows)	Override install location (Windows PowerShell installer)

For blit-gateway configuration, running as a systemd/launchd service, and Nix module setup, see SERVICES.md and nix/README.md.

How it compares

	blit	ttyd	gotty	Eternal Terminal	Mosh	xterm.js + node-pty
Architecture	Single binary	Single binary	Single binary	Client + daemon	Client + server	Library (BYO server)
Multiple PTYs	✅ First-class	❌ One per instance	❌ One per instance	❌ One per connection	❌ One per connection	⚠️ Manual
Browser access	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅
Delta updates	✅ Only changed cells	❌	❌	❌	✅ State diffs	❌
LZ4 compression	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Per-client backpressure	✅ Render-metric pacing	❌	❌	⚠️ SSH flow control	❌	❌
WebGL rendering	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	⚠️ Addon
Transport	WS, WebTransport, WebRTC, Unix	WebSocket	WebSocket	TCP	UDP	WebSocket
Embeddable (React/Solid)	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅
Agent / CLI subcommands	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
SSH tunneling built-in	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌

Contributing

Building from source, running tests, dev environment setup, code conventions, and release process are all covered in CONTRIBUTING.md. CI/CD pipelines, the install site, and the signaling hub are documented in SERVICES.md. The crate and package map is in ARCHITECTURE.md.

Docker sandbox

The grab/blit-demo image runs unprivileged and launches blit share on startup. It includes blit itself, plus fish, busybox, htop, neovim, git, curl, jq, tree, and ncdu.

To build locally:

nix build .#demo-image
docker load < result
docker run --rm grab/blit-demo