Heeler is an agent console: a native dashboard of every coding agent running on your machines, sorted by who needs you. Open an Agent to read and steer its live terminal, draft with the full iOS keyboard in a native Composer, and Send the complete message once — all over plain SSH.
Screenshots
| Agent Console | Direct Input + Terminal keyboard | Live terminal |
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| Changes | File diff | Terminals |
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| Skills | Hosts | Live Activity |
| --- | --- | --- |
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Features
- Console — every Agent on every machine in one status-sorted list
- Attach — the Agent's real terminal rendered by libghostty: native
- Composer — draft locally with the full iOS keyboard (autocorrect, IME,
- Terminal — open a plain shell in the Agent's directory, with Text and
- Attachments — stage a photo or a file up to 64 MiB onto the Host over
- QR pairing — scan a Pairing Code to add a machine; keys are generated
- Notifications + Live Activities — end-to-end encrypted pushes when an
- Worktrees — start an Agent on a clean checkout of the workspace's repo.
- Appearance — System, Light, or Dark; 30 terminal themes with separate
- Jump Host — reach unroutable machines through an SSH jump, with keys
How it connects
On macOS and Linux Hosts, Heeler speaks herdr's JSON API over SSH: each request opens a
direct-streamlocal channel onto herdr.sock, one long-lived channel carries
the event stream, and interactive terminals run herdr agent attach
--takeover on an SSH PTY. The only prerequisites are SSH access and a
running herdr — no server changes, no extra packages. The SSH server must
allow stream-local forwarding (the OpenSSH default); onboarding calls it out
when it's disabled.
Native Windows Hosts (herdr >= 0.9.3) connect over SSH and are added manually.
Unroutable machines can sit behind an SSH Jump Host:
Installation
Install Heeler from the App Store or TestFlight.
- macOS / Linux: Install herdr, enable SSH,
- Native Windows: Follow the Windows setup guide.
Adding a machine
On a macOS or Linux machine running herdr (Node >= 20, herdr >= 0.7.5, OpenSSH server on — macOS: System Settings > General > Sharing > Remote Login):
herdr plugin install ZingerLittleBee/Heeler/plugin --ref main --yes
herdr plugin action invoke heeler.pairScan the Pairing Code QR it shows and the machine is added as a Host — the code carries the addresses, the host key fingerprint, and SSH key enrollment. The same plugin delivers the encrypted notifications once you enable them for the Host in the app.
Stack
- SwiftUI, iOS 18+, iPhone and iPad. iPad support is restored in 0.1.8 with Magic Keyboard shortcuts, multiwindow, and drag and drop.
- The repository-local
Packages/HeelerSSH(libssh2 + OpenSSL) for SSH - libghostty-spm for terminal emulation and Metal rendering
docs/adr/ for why — the transport story in particular is not obvious.
Contributing
Issues and PRs are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for layout, build/test, and conventions.
Status
Released on the App Store. It is not yet available in every country or region; where it is missing, the TestFlight build stays available. Built for personal use first and shaped by daily driving, so expect rough edges and fast iteration. Not affiliated with the herdr project.