session is a lightweight terminal session manager for persistent shells.

It is designed for the simple workflow:

• start a session
• disconnect from SSH or close your terminal
• come back later
• run session --resume and jump back in

Unlike screen, this project stays focused on session persistence and quick re-entry, not full terminal multiplexing.

• Persistent shell sessions backed by a PTY
• Resume picker built with Bubble Tea
• Newest-first session list
• Named sessions with --name
• Detach shortcut with Ctrl-B then d
• Session bar at the top of attached terminals
• Live session details in the list and resume UI:
  • session name
  • current working directory
  • detected foreground application
  • shell and daemon PIDs
• Single-binary workflow

This is an intentionally small first version.

Current behavior:

• one client attached to a session at a time
• one shell per session
• sessions are stored under the user state directory:
  • $XDG_STATE_HOME/session
  • or ~/.local/state/session

One-line install to /usr/local/bin:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SarahRoseLives/session/main/install.sh | sh

The installer downloads the latest GitHub release binary and places it at /usr/local/bin/session. It currently supports Linux amd64 and Linux arm64. If /usr/local/bin is not writable, it will use sudo.

Build it locally:

go build -o session .

Or install it to your Go bin directory:

go install .

Start a new session:

session

Start a named session:

session --name workbench

List saved sessions:

session --list

Open the interactive resume picker:

session --resume

Detach from an attached session without stopping it:

• press Ctrl-B then d

The --resume screen supports:

• arrow keys or j / k to move
• enter to reconnect
• q or esc to cancel

It adapts to smaller terminals by switching to a compact layout and trimming long values.

When you start a session, session launches a detached background daemon that:

1. starts your shell inside a PTY
2. stores session metadata on disk
3. exposes a Unix socket for reconnecting
4. forwards terminal input, output, and resize events

The resume view reads saved sessions, checks which ones are still alive, enriches them with runtime details from /proc, and presents them newest first.

screen is a powerful multiplexer.

session is narrower by design:

• better for: “keep this shell alive and let me get back to it later”
• not trying to be: multiwindow management, copy mode, splits, or a full multiplexer replacement

Run tests:

go test ./...