Opportunities › Mobile SSH terminal for remote development › Proposed app
Tendril
Full-screen SSH terminal with alerts when your remote agents need you
- Score
- 32
- confidence 50
- Evidence
- 5
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 1
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Mobile app
- PWA: installs on iPhone and Android
- Market since
- 2010
- Mature market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Mobile app: Engineers monitor long-running remote servers and respond to agent alerts while away from desk with full-screen terminal access on phone. Sample screens on a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Sessions
2 waiting
- api-agentWaiting for input
- build-boxRunning 3h 12m
- staging-webRunning
- data-workerExited (1)
About this appAI proposal
Tendril is an SSH terminal for your phone, built for developers who leave long-running work on remote machines. It renders full-screen terminal apps on a small display, so editors, monitors and agent consoles stay usable away from the desk.
It watches the sessions you pick and sends a push notification when something needs you: a prompt waiting for input, a process that exited, a dev server that crashed. You can browse files and preview a localhost dev server in the app, with no port forwarding to set up.
It is a proposal for a one-time purchase tool, not a subscription. Generic mobile SSH apps, according to the source material, lack full TUI rendering and workflow features. Tendril is aimed at that gap.
- Tagline
- Your terminal, in your pocket, tapping you when it matters.
- Voice
- DirectCalmTechnical
- Why this name
- A tendril is a thin line that reaches out from a plant. It stands for a light connection to far-away machines. The name is short, plain and easy to say.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Full TUI rendering on small screens
Run full-screen terminal programs on a phone. Layouts reflow to the screen, with a key bar for Ctrl, Esc, Tab and arrows.
No member yet
Push alerts when action is needed
Choose which sessions to watch. Get a notification when input is awaited, a process exits or output matches a rule you set.
No member yet
Agent state tracking
See each remote agent process as running, waiting or stopped, so you know which one to open first.
No member yet
Localhost preview without port forwarding
Open a remote dev server in an in-app preview. No tunnel commands or router settings to configure.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#14201EDeep Pine · primary, dark surface#F4F1EAPaper · surface#1C2321Ink · text#E0701FSignal Orange · accent, alerts#2F6F9FHarbor Blue · data#5E8C61Moss · success status
Typography
Aa
Tendril
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. These tiers copy the one-time model a public claim reports for a similar product: $99 at launch, then $129, with a 14-day trial. Test them.
14-day trial
Free
- Full feature access for 14 days
- No card needed to start
Launch price
$99 once
- All features, one-time purchase
- Unlimited hosts and sessions
- Push alerts and previews included
- Updates for the current major version
Standard
$129 once
- Same as launch price
- Applies after the launch period
Would you pay Launch price · $99 once?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. Tendril is a personal tool and its output is not shared with other people. It reaches customers through developer communities, launch posts, content on mobile workflows for agents, and word of mouth.
- Do they become customers?
- There is no built-in loop. Test whether launch posts and a free 14-day trial convert developers into paid buyers, and whether teammates recommend it by name.
- First customers
- Solo developers and small-team engineers who run long-lived coding agents or dev servers on remote Linux machines and want to check them from a phone.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News: Post a Show HN with a demo of TUI rendering and agent alerts. The source post drew 25 points and 10 comments.
- Developer subreddits: Share a short demo in communities for self-hosting, terminal tools and AI coding agents, and answer technical questions.
- Trial waitlist: Offer the 14-day trial to people who reply, and ask each for one remote workflow they want to monitor.
- First milestone
- Twenty-five trial users, and ten paying at the $99 launch price within 60 days of the first release.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 25 points and 10 comments
- Public claimProduct uses one-time purchase monetization model with pricing at $99 launch promo then $129 after.
- Public claimDeveloper has been actively using the product for several months in real workflows.
- Public claimProduct provides full TUI rendering on mobile screens which existing solutions lack.
- Public claim
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · SSH relay serviceWebSocket-to-SSH gatewayBrowsers cannot open raw SSH connections, so a gateway is needed to carry the terminal session.
- This app · Host connectorSmall outbound-only agent on the serverGives preview and alerts without port forwarding by dialing out from the server to the relay.
RisksAI inference
- PlatformWeb push and background behavior on iOS PWAs are limited. Alerts may arrive late, and the app must be installed to the home screen. Test this before promising reliability.
- TechnicalTerminal sessions in a PWA need a relay, and mobile browsers suspend background tabs. Reconnecting without losing state is hard and affects trust.
- RegulatoryRouting SSH traffic through a relay raises security concerns for professional users. It needs a clear threat model, end-to-end encryption where possible, and possibly an audit.
- CommercialOnly some developers want a paid phone terminal. The evidence is one post with 25 points, so demand at $99 to $129 is unproven.
- AIAgent state detection from terminal output is heuristic. Wrong or missed alerts would make users distrust the notifications.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.