upterm
A terminal emulator for the 21st century.
An experimental terminal emulator with IDE-like autocompletion and smart command hints. No longer maintained, archived for historical reference.
Upterm (formerly Black Screen) was an experimental terminal emulator that aimed to go beyond a plain command-line window by adding IDE-like features. A terminal emulator is the app you type shell commands into on a computer. Upterm's main addition was a smart autocompletion popup that appeared as you typed, showing command descriptions, alias expansions, and directory hints — similar to the autocomplete you see in a code editor.
It was built on Electron (the same cross-platform framework behind VS Code), TypeScript, and React, and it supported standard command-line programs including vim, emacs, and ssh.
Note: this project is deprecated and no longer maintained. The original maintainer stepped away and community activity stopped. The README itself recommends checking out Hyper as an actively maintained alternative. You would only look at this repository for historical interest or to understand how Electron-based terminal emulators were constructed.
Where it fits
- Study how Electron-based terminal emulators are architected and built.
- Understand smart autocompletion UI patterns for command-line interfaces.
- Explore historical approaches to adding IDE features to terminals.