Trellis is a native macOS terminal that's more than a terminal: windows, tabs and splits in a sidebar, saved SSH hosts, one-click project tasks, a command palette and scratchpad, plus a CLI and MCP server so scripts and AI agents can drive it. Free, MIT.
Most terminals stop at "a window with a shell in it." I wanted one place for everything I do around the shell, so I built Trellis, a native Swift app for macOS:
Smart Workspace, not just tabs: managed windows in a sidebar, color-labeled tabs, nested splits, and sessions that can keep running after you quit or saved in a file.
Laundpad: run .trellis/launch.json tasks from the pane header and check your layout into the repo
Hosts at hand: a saved SSH library plus ~/.ssh/config discovery, with optional Keychain passwords
Command Pallete: Everything in one search: ⇧⌘P finds any action, window, tab, saved host, task or theme
Private and Native: no telemetry, and terminal output and typed input are never logged.
A scratchpad beside your panes: write a script with syntax highlighting, check it, run it in the focused pane, or save it as a task
It's free and MIT-licensed. I'd love your feedback on what a terminal should do beyond being a terminal.
The .trellis/launch.json idea is what caught my eye — checking a layout into the repo makes the workspace reproducible in a way tabs never are. How do you handle the parts that don't travel well between machines, like absolute paths or a task that only makes sense on one person's setup? And with the MCP server, can an agent only run those checked-in tasks, or can it open arbitrary panes and hosts too?
Turning a scratchpad command into a saved project task is a nice detail. That's usually the point where a one-off command becomes something the rest of the team needs too.
About Trellis on Product Hunt
“More than a terminal: a native macOS workspace for devs”
Trellis launched on Product Hunt on October 28th, 2026 and earned 71 upvotes and 5 comments, placing #27 on the daily leaderboard. Trellis is a native macOS terminal that's more than a terminal: windows, tabs and splits in a sidebar, saved SSH hosts, one-click project tasks, a command palette and scratchpad, plus a CLI and MCP server so scripts and AI agents can drive it. Free, MIT.
Trellis was featured in Mac (103.9k followers), Open Source (69.1k followers), Developer Tools (523k followers) and GitHub (41.5k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 156.7k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Trellis?
Trellis was hunted by Hélder Vasconcelos. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Hélder Vasconcelos
Hi Product Hunt! 👋
Most terminals stop at "a window with a shell in it." I wanted one place for everything I do around the shell, so I built Trellis, a native Swift app for macOS:
Smart Workspace, not just tabs: managed windows in a sidebar, color-labeled tabs, nested splits, and sessions that can keep running after you quit or saved in a file.
Laundpad: run .trellis/launch.json tasks from the pane header and check your layout into the repo
Hosts at hand: a saved SSH library plus ~/.ssh/config discovery, with optional Keychain passwords
Command Pallete: Everything in one search: ⇧⌘P finds any action, window, tab, saved host, task or theme
Private and Native: no telemetry, and terminal output and typed input are never logged.
A scratchpad beside your panes: write a script with syntax highlighting, check it, run it in the focused pane, or save it as a task
It's free and MIT-licensed. I'd love your feedback on what a terminal should do beyond being a terminal.