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Cosmovex

ShellPilot

Terminal Emulator for Android

A terminal emulator that takes the command line seriously. ShellPilot connects over SSH and renders a proper terminal — ANSI colors, control keys, scrollback — so the tools you rely on actually work on your phone.

Free on Google Play

Most 'terminal' apps on Android either run a sandboxed local shell or render output so poorly that real tools break. ShellPilot is a terminal emulator built for connecting to remote servers over SSH, and it gets the emulation right: a PTY-backed session with full ANSI escape-sequence handling.

That accuracy matters the moment you run anything interactive. htop draws its colored bars and updates in place. vim and nano display syntax highlighting and redraw cleanly. tmux and screen sessions render their status lines. ncdu, less, and man pages scroll properly instead of dumping garbled characters.

Phone keyboards hide the keys a terminal needs, so ShellPilot adds an extended keyboard row: Tab for completion, Escape for vim, the pipe and slash characters, arrow keys, and function keys. A scrollback buffer keeps output that scrolls past the top of the screen, and you can adjust the font size to fit more on screen or make it readable one-handed.

Because it's remote-first, the terminal is connected to a real machine with real tooling — your packages, your shell config, your environment. You're not limited to whatever a local sandbox ships; you get the full command line of the server you're connecting to.

What you get

PTY-backed terminal with full ANSI color support

Renders htop, vim, tmux, nano, ncdu correctly

Extended keyboard: Tab, Esc, pipe, arrows, function keys

Scrollback buffer for reviewing past output

Adjustable font size and dark terminal theme

Control sequences — Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+R

Multiple server sessions with quick switching

Connection persists across screen rotation

Password and SSH key authentication

Fingerprint lock for the app

How to open a terminal session on Android

1
Install ShellPilot
Get ShellPilot free from Google Play — a terminal emulator built for remote SSH sessions.
2
Add a host
Enter your server's address, port, and username, and pick password or key authentication.
3
Open the terminal
Tap to connect and a full terminal session opens, ready for commands.
4
Use the dev keyboard
Tap the extended keyboard row for Tab, Escape, pipe, and arrow keys when running interactive tools.

Who uses ShellPilot

Run htop to find a hung process

Open the terminal, run htop, watch CPU and memory live in full color, and kill the offending process — all on the phone.

Edit a file in vim remotely

Escape and arrow keys work, so editing a config in vim over SSH behaves the way it does on a laptop.

Reattach a tmux session

Pick up a long-running tmux session from your phone exactly where you left it at your desk.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a local terminal or a remote one?

ShellPilot is a remote-first terminal emulator — it connects to servers over SSH and gives you that machine's full command line, rather than a limited local sandbox.

Do tools like htop and vim display correctly?

Yes. ShellPilot has full ANSI color and escape-sequence support with a PTY-backed session, so htop, vim, tmux, nano, and similar tools render and behave correctly.

How do I type keys like Tab and Escape?

ShellPilot adds an extended keyboard row above the standard keyboard with Tab, Escape, pipe, slash, arrow keys, and function keys.

Is it free?

Yes, ShellPilot is free to download and use, with ads and an optional one-time Pro upgrade.