Home

Home is the first page Vaulterm shows after you unlock it. It’s where you go back to what you were doing, or start something new. Open it any time with Home at the top of the left rail, or Go to Home in the Command Center.

This page describes Home in v2, the look everyone has had since 0.1.2. If you chose v1 · Original in Settings → Appearance, the last section says how its Home differs.

Home has two columns. On the left are the greeting, a search bar, the tabs you left open, your recent or most-used servers and your saved layouts. On the right are your stats and this computer’s CPU and memory. In a narrow window it becomes one column, with the right-hand cards below.

The greeting

Above the heading is today’s date, such as “Wednesday, 14 October”. The heading says good morning (5am to noon), good afternoon (noon to 6pm) or good evening, followed by your name if you’ve given one. Change the name in Settings → Profile, or with Change your name in the Command Center. Leave it blank and the greeting has no name.

Start a connection

The search bar has one field, Search hosts or type user@host. The Command Center’s shortcut is shown at its right edge as a reminder.

• Type part of a saved host’s name, address or tag, move with ↑ and ↓, and press Enter to connect. Up to 8 matches show, and only while the field has focus.
• Type an address such as [email protected] and the list offers “Connect to [email protected]”. The same address rules apply as in the Command Center.
• Escape clears what you typed.

Local shell beside it opens a shell on this computer in a new tab. The Add host button (a plus sign) opens the New host sheet. See Hosts.

Before you have any hosts

On a fresh vault, with no hosts, no connection history and no layouts, a Connect to your first server card stands where the lists would be, with three buttons:

• Add host opens the New host sheet. See Hosts.
• Import from this computer brings over ~/.ssh/config and PuTTY. See Bring your hosts over.
• Local shell opens a shell on this computer.

Pick up where you left off

When you quit Vaulterm with tabs open, the next start shows a Pick up where you left off card above the lists. It says when you closed Vaulterm (“Closed 2 hours ago”) and shows each tab you had open as a chip. A tab with a split lists its panes joined with ⟷, such as web-01 ⟷ db-primary. A tab on a host has a dot, a tab on a local shell has a terminal icon, and past six tabs the last chip says how many more there are (“+2”).

• Resume 3 tabs (the button says how many) opens the same tabs and splits, and connects them.
• Not now hides the card until a newer set of tabs is saved.

Nothing reconnects until you press Resume. The saved tabs are kept in your encrypted vault, so the list of servers you had open isn’t readable while Vaulterm is locked.

The card only appears when Restore previous session is on in Settings → Workspace. It’s on by default. Once you’ve resumed, the card doesn’t come back until the next start.

Recent and Most used

The list’s heading is the one you’ve chosen. The switch beside it has two choices, Recent and Most used, and Vaulterm remembers which you picked. All hosts opens the Hosts page.

• Recent lists the last 6 servers you connected to, newest first, each with when (“5 minutes ago”, “Yesterday”, “2 weeks ago”).
• Most used lists the 6 you’ve connected to most often, with a count beside each (“12 connections”). A server that’s also in Recent isn’t left out.
• Each row has the server’s first letter, its name and address, and a Connect button. Click anywhere on the row, or press Enter on Connect, to connect in a new tab.
• Drag a saved host from either list onto Workspace in the left rail to open it in a new tab.
• Addresses you reached with quick connect show too, marked “Quick connect”.
• Only real connections count. Opening the editor or browsing a host’s page doesn’t.
• A host you delete drops out of both lists.

With nothing to show, the list says “Hosts you connect to show up here.”

Saved layouts

The Saved layouts grid shows each of your saved layouts as a card: a small picture of how many tabs it opens (up to six), its name, and a line such as “4 tabs · web-01, db-primary, staging, build-box”. Past four tabs, the line lists the first four and then how many more. Click a card to open it.

Each card has a More button with Rename…, Duplicate and Delete, and right-clicking a card shows the same menu.

Saved layouts need Pro. Without it, your layouts stay listed with a lock, and opening one offers Pro.

With no layouts saved, the grid says “Save a layout from a tab’s menu to reopen it here.”

Your Vaulterm

The first card in the right column counts how you use Vaulterm. On a new install counting is off, and the card is an invitation: “Keep a private tally of your commands, sessions, hosts and streaks, just for fun.” It stays on this computer, never includes what you type, and you can turn it off or reset it any time.

• Turn on starts counting.
• Not now hides the invitation. It stays hidden until you turn counting on in Settings → Privacy, with Count my usage on this computer.

An install that was already counting keeps counting, and shows the card.

With counting on, the card shows:

• Your streak, in days, with “Current streak · best” and your longest run, and a bar of the last seven days, filled for the days the streak covers.
• Four figures. Point at one to see its exact value.
• Badges, such as “3 of 8”, with a small picture for each, lit once earned, and a line naming the nearest one to earn (“Next: 100 commands, 12 commands to go”).
• A Settings link that opens Settings → Privacy.

Figure	What it counts
commands run	Enter pressed in any terminal, including a Code window’s
time connected	time with at least one SSH session live (local shells don’t count; a computer asleep doesn’t count). It’s shown short (“45m”, “2h 5m”, “2d 15h”)
sessions	every connection or local shell started
hosts reached	different servers you’ve connected to
streak	days in a row you’ve run a command or opened a session, up to today, with your longest run beside it

The eight badges are First connection, 100 commands, 1,000 commands, 10,000 commands, 7-day streak, 30-day streak, 10 hosts and 24 hours connected.

Only numbers are stored. Vaulterm never records what you type, which commands you run, hostnames or anything shown in a terminal. Servers are counted by a hash of their random internal id, and quick-connect addresses only add to a count. The stats stay on this computer.

To start again from zero, open Settings → Privacy and press Reset stats. Vaulterm asks first (“Reset your stats?”); press Reset.

This computer

Below your stats, a card shows this computer’s CPU use as a percentage and Memory as used out of total, each with a bar. Under them is one line with Uptime and the network’s download (↓) and upload (↑) speed. They’re read every 2 seconds while Home is on screen, and reading stops when you leave Home. At first the card says “Reading…”, and if the system won’t report them, “Stats unavailable”.

Good to know

• Home refreshes the greeting and the date every minute while it’s on screen, so it moves on from morning to afternoon without reopening.
• The Resume card and the stats are separate: resetting stats doesn’t touch your saved tabs, and dismissing the card doesn’t touch your stats.
• The first time Home shows after Vaulterm opens, its cards rise in one after another. Coming back to Home from another page is calm.

In v1 · Original

In v1 · Original, Home is one column of cards, in this order:

• The greeting, with no date line.
• Pick up where you left off, a card with the tabs summed up on one line, joined with ⟷ and a dot, such as web-01 ⟷ db-primary · staging-api. Resume opens them, and Dismiss hides the card until a newer set of tabs is saved.
• Start, with the same search field and Local shell. On a fresh vault it’s replaced by Connect to your first server.
• Recent, the last 5 servers you connected to, and Most connected, the 5 you’ve connected to most often, leaving out any already in Recent, with a count beside each.
• Layouts, with the same More menu on each row.
• This computer, showing CPU, Memory, Uptime and Network use.
• Your Vaulterm, with six figures in a grid (commands run, time connected, sessions opened, hosts reached, day streak and longest streak) and the badges below. It follows the same setting, Count my usage on this computer, and says “Counts only, kept on this computer. Reset them in Settings → Privacy.”