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Shell Access

Version 0.1.7.

What it does​

Shell Access opens an SSH session on a fleet-onboarded device and records it. Every session it opens is captured automatically, and you can replay the recording afterward in a built-in terminal player.

When you'd use it​

You need an interactive terminal on a device — to poke around, run a one-off command, or debug something live — or you need to go back and see exactly what happened during a past session (an audit trail, or retracing a problem after the fact).

Enable or install​

Like other extensions, it can be enabled, disabled, or uninstalled from the Extensions view. It contributes two commands reachable from the command palette — Shell: Open Recordings and Shell: Connect to Device — and a sidebar entry titled Shell.

Key screens​

  • Shell (the recordings table) — one row per past session, showing the device, the user who ran it, when it started, its duration (or a pulsing Live badge while the session is still open), and the bytes transferred so far. A search box and Device / User / date-range filters sit above the table; click Play on a row to open it in the player.
  • The session player — replays a recording into a terminal, with play/pause, a draggable scrubber, elapsed and total time, and a speed control that cycles 1×, 2×, 4×, 8×. A Skip idle toggle compresses gaps longer than 2.5 seconds so you don't sit through dead air. The header shows the shell path, terminal size, duration, exit code, and bytes transferred. Two buttons — ⬇ .cast and ⬇ .txt — export the session as an asciinema recording or a plain-text transcript.
  • Signed out, the panel shows "Sign in to view session recordings." with a Sign in button in place of the table.

Common tasks​

  • Open a live shell — from a device's card elsewhere in the app (its Open Shell action), not from Shell Access's own panel. Bringup opens a new Terminal tab already connected.
  • Replay a session — open Shell from the sidebar (or run Shell: Open Recordings), find the row, click Play.
  • Narrow the list — use the search box or the Device / User / date-range filters above the table.
  • Export a session — from the player header, download it as an asciinema .cast file or a plain-text transcript.

Permissions requested​

commands.register, commands.execute, statusBar.write, authentication.session, terminal.execute, devices.read, devices.registerCapability, devices.shell.

Known limits​

  • Recordings are scoped to your active workspace — switching workspaces clears the list until the new workspace's recordings load.
  • The player is playback-only; there's no way to type into a replay.
  • No in-app way to delete a recording was found in source.

Get a Shell on a Device