Purple. SSH Config Manager for Your Terminal

Stop editing ~/.ssh/config by hand. Life's too short.

Purple is a fast, interactive SSH config manager and SSH config editor for your terminal. Built as a keyboard-driven terminal UI (TUI), Purple lets you add, edit, delete and connect to SSH hosts without opening a text editor.

Written in Rust. Works with your existing ~/.ssh/config. No proprietary formats, no lock-in, no nonsense. If you need a terminal SSH manager that respects your workflow, Purple is it.

What is Purple?

Purple is an open-source SSH config manager that runs in your terminal. It provides a keyboard-driven TUI (terminal user interface) for managing the hosts in your ~/.ssh/config file. Instead of manually editing your SSH config with a text editor, Purple gives you a form-based interface to add, edit and delete SSH hosts, then connects to them with a single keypress.

Purple is written in Rust, works with your existing SSH config file (no proprietary format) and creates automatic backups before every change.

Features

• Interactive terminal interface (TUI). Navigate with keyboard, no GUI required
• Add, edit and delete SSH hosts with a simple form-based interface
• Connect to any host with a single keypress
• Preserves your existing SSH config. Formatting, comments and unknown directives stay intact
• Works with any terminal theme. Light, dark, Solarized, Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, you name it
• Vim-style navigation (j/k) plus arrow keys
• Zero config. Reads your existing ~/.ssh/config out of the box
• Automatic backups. Creates timestamped backups before every config change
• Atomic writes. No half-written configs if something goes wrong
• Tiny binary. Fast startup, minimal disk usage
• Written in Rust. Because life's too short for segfaults too

Who is Purple For?

• DevOps engineers managing dozens or hundreds of SSH hosts across environments
• Developers who SSH into dev servers, staging and production daily
• Sysadmins who want a safer alternative to hand-editing ~/.ssh/config
• Anyone tired of scrolling through a 200-line SSH config to find the right hostname

Installation

Homebrew (macOS)

brew install erickochen/purple/purple

Or:

brew tap erickochen/purple
brew install purple

From source

cargo install purple-ssh

Build from Git

git clone https://github.com/erickochen/purple.git
cd purple
cargo build --release
# Binary is at target/release/purple

Quick Start

# Connect to a host directly
purple -c myserver

# List all your SSH hosts
purple --list

# Launch the full interactive TUI
purple

Keybindings

Host List

Host Form (Add/Edit)

Why Use Purple Instead of a Text Editor?

• One typo in ~/.ssh/config can lock you out of every server. Purple validates input before writing.
• SSH config syntax is fiddly. Indentation matters, directive names are case-insensitive but values are not and there's no built-in way to check for errors. Purple handles the formatting for you.
• No backups by default. If you fat-finger a sed command or a bad editor save, your old config is gone. Purple creates timestamped backups before every write.
• Jumping between hosts is slow. With Purple, you see all your hosts and connect with one keypress.

How It Works

Purple reads and writes the standard OpenSSH config file at ~/.ssh/config. It parses the file while preserving:

• Comments (# like this)
• Blank lines and formatting
• Unknown or advanced directives (e.g., ForwardAgent, LocalForward)
• Wildcard entries (Host *)

When you add, edit, or delete a host, Purple writes the changes back atomically (temp file + rename) and creates a timestamped backup first. Editing a host preserves all existing directives that Purple doesn't manage. Your ForwardAgent, Compression and other settings stay exactly where they are.

Supported Host Directives

Purple's form supports these commonly used directives:

All other directives in your config are preserved as-is.

Alternatives & Comparison

Looking for an SSH config manager? Here's how Purple compares:

Purple is designed for developers who want to manage and edit their SSH hosts from the terminal without sacrificing safety. If you just need a host picker, sshs is a great choice. If you want full config management with backups and atomic writes, Purple is the tool for that.

Terminal Compatibility

Purple uses only the 16 standard ANSI colors, which means it automatically adapts to your terminal's color scheme. It looks great on:

• Dark themes: iTerm2 default, Terminal.app dark, Alacritty dark
• Light themes: Solarized Light, Terminal.app default light
• Popular schemes: Dracula, Nord, Gruvbox, One Dark, Catppuccin
• High contrast: Accessible themes for visual impairment

No emoji or Nerd Font icons required. Purple uses standard Unicode box-drawing characters that work with any monospace font (SF Mono, JetBrains Mono, Menlo, Fira Code, etc.).

Minimum terminal size: 60 columns x 15 rows.

FAQ

Q: Will Purple mess up my SSH config? A: No. Purple creates a timestamped backup before every write and uses atomic file operations (write to temp file, then rename). Your original formatting, comments and unknown directives are preserved. Editing a host preserves all directives Purple doesn't know about (like ForwardAgent, Compression, etc.).

Q: How is Purple different from sshs? A: sshs is a host picker. It reads your SSH config and lets you select a host to connect to. Purple is a full SSH config manager: you can add, edit and delete hosts, not just connect to them. Purple also creates backups and uses atomic writes.

Q: Can Purple handle hundreds of SSH hosts? A: Yes. Purple's TUI renders a scrollable list and handles large configs without issues.

Q: Does Purple support ProxyJump / bastion hosts? A: Yes. Purple's host form includes a ProxyJump field for jump host / bastion host configurations.

Q: Is Purple safe to use on production SSH configs? A: Yes. Purple creates a timestamped backup before every write and uses atomic file operations. If anything goes wrong, your previous config is preserved.

Q: Can I use Purple with SSH keys and IdentityFile? A: Yes. You can specify the path to your SSH key (e.g., ~/.ssh/id_ed25519) when adding or editing a host.

Q: Does it work with Include directives? A: Purple currently reads the main ~/.ssh/config file. Include directives are preserved but not followed. Support for included files is planned.

Q: Can I use a custom config path? A: Yes! Use purple --config /path/to/config.

Q: Does Purple work with tmux / screen? A: Yes. Purple uses standard ANSI escape codes and works correctly inside tmux, screen and other terminal multiplexers.

Q: Does it work on Linux? A: Purple is built for macOS but should work on Linux too. Homebrew installation is macOS-only; use cargo install on Linux.

License

MIT