Getting started

1. Run the beta

Needs Docker Desktop (Mac/Windows) or Docker Engine (Linux).

git clone https://github.com/devnexthop/nterm.ai.git
cd nterm.ai
docker compose up --build

Open http://localhost:8787. First boot seeds Lab (local shell + Cisco / PAN / Forti simulators). Session data is in ./data — treat it like a password database.

2. Find your way around

The nav rail on the left is Sessions, Toolkit, Bench, Monitor, Settings. The explorer under Sessions is a folder tree: pick a site folder and that folder owns the tab strip. Switch folder and those tabs hide; the sessions stay connected. The header names the device, the folder, the vendor, Share and Subnet. Merge / Split / Quad tiles the panes. Drag a panel title to dock it on another edge.

3. Connect

Click a Lab simulator to practice without gear.
New session: SSH (default 22), Telnet (23), or Serial (COM / cu.usbserial, desktop-first).
Save usernames and passwords in the vault, then apply them when you create a session.
Drag a session from the explorer onto the tab strip to open it, or just click it. Right-click a folder to open all of it.
Right-click a session: quick connect, edit, duplicate, delete.

4. The command bar

One bar under the terminal, three modes.

Do — type the change in English. NTerm shows the CLI. Confirm sends it; Discard does nothing.
Cast — send the same command to several sessions at once.
Macros — your saved commands, filtered to the vendor you are on. These were called chips before.

Paste an OpenAI or Anthropic API key in Settings for model-backed asks. Lab heuristics work without a key.

On a switch, set Loopback0 to 1.1.1.1/24 comes back as IOS. On a local shell it comes back as your shell — the Do bar detects the userland and drafts GNU on Linux, BSD on macOS, and PowerShell on Windows. Ask it for a chmod, a find, or which process owns port 8787 and it will answer in the spelling your machine takes. Windows shells run over ConPTY.

The container ships ip, ping, traceroute, dig, nslookup, nc, netstat, ss, curl, wget, telnet, tcpdump, mtr, socat, less, nano and vi, so a local shell is useful the moment it opens.

5. Local MCP

While NTerm is running, point Cursor or Claude Code at:

http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp

Agents can search your KB for config ideas. They cannot type on a live session from MCP in this beta.

6. Toolkit ports

Syslog 514 / TFTP 69 / DHCP 67 are opt-in:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.lab.yml up --build

Stop

Ctrl+C, then docker compose down. Wipe the vault with rm -rf data.

Run it. Talk to a session.