What’s new in Sshly.

Sshly never checked for updates. Not "checked and found nothing" — it made no request at all, and the failure was swallowed, so nothing ever pointed it out.

The updater module was loaded in a way that cannot work inside a packaged app. It now loads correctly, and any future failure is written to the log and surfaced instead of being hidden.

If you are on 0.1.3 or older

Those builds cannot fetch this update themselves — the broken check is baked into them. Please download this version once from sshly.app/download; from here on updates arrive on their own.

Also in this release

• "Check for updates" reports honestly when it cannot reach the update server, instead of claiming you are up to date.

A security and reliability release. Most of it you will never see — which is the point.

AI access

• Read-only really means read-only. The policy no longer judges a command by its first word: pipes, chaining, command substitution and flags that launch other programs are refused outright, so a read-only server cannot be talked into running something else.
• Credentials are never read unattended. Any command touching key files, .env files or system password files now asks you first, whatever the server's policy is.
• Approvals come to you. When an AI asks to run something, Sshly steps in front of what you are doing — even from the menu bar — instead of waiting unseen.
• The bridge now refuses requests from browser origins, compares its token in constant time, and slows down repeated bad tokens.

Reliability

• A dropped connection keeps your scrollback. You get a reconnect banner instead of an emptied terminal.
• Unexpected internal errors no longer surface as a raw stack trace, and no longer take running sessions down with them.
• Hostnames containing underscores are accepted instead of silently refused.

Fixed

• Editing a remote file over FTP with an external app could corrupt binary files (images, PDFs, archives) on save. Files are now written back byte-for-byte.
• Importing from ~/.ssh/config bypassed the free-tier connection limit.
• The download declared macOS 11 support although the app requires macOS 12 — Big Sur users could install a build that would not start.
• "Check for updates" now genuinely checks, and says so honestly when it cannot reach the server.

Notes

• Requires macOS 12 Monterey or later.
• The Security settings no longer show Touch ID unlock and idle auto-lock: they were switches with nothing behind them yet.

The first public build of Sshly is here. 🎉

New

• GPU-accelerated terminal with 60fps scrolling and instant keystrokes.

• SFTP file manager with drag-and-drop and inline editing.

• SSH key management — passphrases stored in the macOS Keychain.

• Port forwarding — local, remote and dynamic tunnels.

• Free tier with up to 3 connections, plus one-time licenses to unlock unlimited.

• AI server access (MCP bridge) — let Claude Code run commands on your servers through Sshly. Credentials never leave the app; you approve each command. Set it up in Settings → AI Access.

• Close to menu bar — the red button keeps Sshly running in the menu bar so your sessions stay alive.

Notes

• Apple Silicon build.

A big under-the-hood release.

Improved

• Electron 43 — Sshly now runs on the latest runtime with all current Chromium security patches (up from Electron 33).
• Dependency security audit: every runtime vulnerability from our CVE scan is resolved.
• First Keychain access per secret is now cached — repeat connects are instant.

Fixed

• The window can now be dragged from anywhere in the title bar, not just left of the server pill.
• The connect screen no longer flashes a password prompt while auto-connecting with stored credentials — you get a proper connecting state instead.

This release is all about how the terminal feels.

Improved

• Much smoother output under load — shell output is now batched and streamed in binary, so cat-ing a huge file or a noisy build log no longer stutters.
• Instant keystrokes — disabled Nagle's algorithm on the SSH connection (like OpenSSH does) and removed buffering from the echo path. Typing now feels like a local terminal.
• Flood protection — an accidental yes or a runaway log can't freeze the app anymore; Sshly applies backpressure and Ctrl-C stays responsive.

Fixed

• Multi-byte characters (umlauts, emoji) no longer break when they arrive split across network chunks.

Notes

• Builds are now signed and notarised by Apple — no Gatekeeper workarounds needed.