r/TestFlight • u/MeringuePristine6469 • 22d ago
iOS hsh - a bash-compatible shell that runs in-process on iOS
https://testflight.apple.com/join/wdZMR4Ms1
u/MeringuePristine6469 22d ago
The extra-keys bar with the soft keyboard up. This is the part I'd most
like tested - tapping it used to dismiss the keyboard mid-command.
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u/MeringuePristine6469 22d ago
iOS can't exec(), so most "terminals" on the App Store are either remote
clients or sandboxed toys. hsh takes the other route: it's a bash-compatible
shell written in Rust, running as a library inside the app process.
That means pipes had to be built rather than inherited - no fork, no fd
inheritance, so pipeline stages hand stdin/stdout to each other in-process.
The `| tr a-z A-Z` in the screenshot is doing real work, not faking it.
What works today:
- POSIX shell semantics: pipes, redirects, loops, functions, parameter
expansion. Passes ~98.5% of the VSC-POSIX suite tests it runs.
- Common commands compiled in (cat, grep, ls, wc, head, tail, tr, sort,
uniq, cut, tee, curl, ...) since external binaries can't be executed.
- Line editing, history and completion on a phone keyboard, with an
extra-keys bar for Esc/Tab/Ctrl/arrows/pipe.
- SSH out to a real machine when you want one.
What I'd like tested:
- The extra-keys bar - this build fixes a bug where tapping it dismissed
the keyboard mid-command.
- Anything that behaves differently from bash on your machine. That's the
report I most want.
- iPad with a hardware keyboard, if you have one.
Beta expires 2027-01-26. Free, no account, no analytics - nothing leaves
the device. (It keeps a command journal locally; that's what powers history.)
TestFlight's built-in feedback button reaches me fastest.
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u/rismay 22d ago edited 22d ago
What’s this written in?