⚡ Open Terminal

A lightweight, self-hosted terminal that gives AI agents and automation tools a dedicated environment to run commands, manage files, and execute code — all through a simple API.

Why Open Terminal?

AI assistants are great at writing code, but they need somewhere to run it. Open Terminal is that place — a remote shell with file management, search, and more, accessible over a simple REST API.

You can run it two ways:

• Docker (sandboxed) — runs in an isolated container with a full toolkit pre-installed: Python, Node.js, git, build tools, data science libraries, ffmpeg, and more. Great for giving AI agents a safe playground without touching your host system.
• Bare metal — install it with pip and run it anywhere Python runs. Commands run directly on your machine with access to your real files, your real tools, and your real environment, perfect for local development, personal automation, or giving an AI assistant full access to your actual projects.

Getting Started

Docker (recommended)

docker run -d --name open-terminal --restart unless-stopped -p 8000:8000 -v open-terminal:/home/user -e OPEN_TERMINAL_API_KEY=your-secret-key ghcr.io/open-webui/open-terminal

That's it — you're up and running at http://localhost:8000.

Tip

If you don't set an API key, one is generated automatically. Grab it with docker logs open-terminal.

Customizing the Docker Environment

The default image ships with a broad set of tools, but you can tailor it to your needs. Fork the repo, edit the Dockerfile to add or remove system packages, Python libraries, or language runtimes, then build your own image:

docker build -t my-terminal .
docker run -d --name open-terminal -p 8000:8000 my-terminal

Bare Metal

No Docker? No problem. Open Terminal is a standard Python package:

# One-liner with uvx (no install needed)
uvx open-terminal run --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --api-key your-secret-key

# Or install globally with pip
pip install open-terminal
open-terminal run --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --api-key your-secret-key

Caution

On bare metal, commands run directly on your machine with your user's permissions. Use Docker if you want sandboxed execution.

Configuration

Open Terminal can be configured via a TOML config file, environment variables, and CLI flags. Settings are resolved in this order (highest priority wins):

1. CLI flags (--host, --port, --api-key, etc.)
2. Environment variables (OPEN_TERMINAL_API_KEY, etc.)
3. User config — $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/open-terminal/config.toml (defaults to ~/.config/open-terminal/config.toml)
4. System config — /etc/open-terminal/config.toml
5. Built-in defaults

Create a config file at either location with any of these keys (all optional):

host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 8000
api_key = "sk-my-secret-key"
cors_allowed_origins = "*"
log_dir = "/var/log/open-terminal"
binary_mime_prefixes = "image,audio"

Tip

Use the system config at /etc/open-terminal/config.toml to set site-wide defaults for host and port, and the user config for personal settings like the API key — this keeps the key out of ps / htop.

You can also point to a specific config file:

open-terminal run --config /path/to/my-config.toml

Using with Open WebUI

Open Terminal integrates with Open WebUI, giving your AI assistants the ability to run commands, manage files, and interact with a terminal right from the AI interface. Make sure to add it under Open Terminal in the integrations settings, not as a tool server. Adding it as an Open Terminal connection gives you a built-in file navigation sidebar where you can browse directories, upload, download, and edit files. There are two ways to connect:

Direct Connection

Users can connect their own Open Terminal instance from their user settings. This is useful when the terminal is running on their local machine or a network only they can reach, since requests go directly from the browser.

1. Go to User Settings → Integrations → Open Terminal
2. Add the terminal URL and API key
3. Enable the connection

System-Level Connection

Admins can configure Open Terminal connections for their users from the admin panel. Multiple terminals can be set up with access controlled at the user or group level. Requests are proxied through the Open WebUI backend, so the terminal only needs to be reachable from the server.

1. Go to Admin Settings → Integrations → Open Terminal
2. Add the terminal URL and API key
3. Enable the connection

For isolated, per-user terminal containers, see Terminals, which requires an enterprise license for production use.

API Docs

Full interactive API documentation is available at http://localhost:8000/docs once your instance is running.

Star History

Tip

Need multi-tenant? Check out Terminals, which provisions and manages isolated Open Terminal containers per user with a single authenticated API entry point.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.