# ATerminal: Build with AI on the Go - A Self-Hosted Browser Terminal for Your Home Machine (Tailscale + PWA + ntfy)

> Source: <https://dev.to/alexanderestrella/aterminal-build-with-ai-on-the-go-a-self-hosted-browser-terminal-for-your-home-machine-3f5d>
> Published: 2026-05-26 12:11:03+00:00

I built a terminal server that runs on my home machine and lets me open a full shell from my iPhone. No cloud, no relay, no App Store. Here's how it works and why I made some of the choices I did.

*Brief walkthrough of why ttyd, tmate, and raw SSH from mobile all have meaningful tradeoffs for the "check your home machine from anywhere" use case.*

*Explains the decision to use tailscale serve specifically — how it provides HTTPS, a stable URL, and tailnet-only access without any router config or cert management. Why this was the right tradeoff versus self-hosting a reverse proxy or using tailscale funnel.*

*Short technical explanation of how the browser terminal works — xterm.js renders the frontend, Socket.IO streams the PTY output, Node.js spawns the shell process. What the latency characteristics look like in practice over Tailscale.*

*Honest assessment of the PWA terminal experience on iOS. What works well (add to home screen, full-screen mode), what's still rough (keyboard behavior, copy/paste quirks), and what I'd change.*

*How the ntfy push notification setup works — fires when a session exits. Why this is useful for long builds or monitoring agent processes. How to configure it with a self-hosted ntfy instance.*

*One-command setup walkthrough. Prerequisites (Node.js, Tailscale), what npm run setup:tailscale actually does, and how to verify it's working.*

*Honest list of rough edges: session persistence across reloads, multi-machine dashboard maturity, mobile keyboard quirks. What I'm actively working on.*

*Link to GitHub, invitation for feedback, note on AGPL-3.0 licensing.*