Suwu: Building an Omarchy-Inspired Web Remote Shell with AI
A developer builds Suwu, a web-based remote shell inspired by omarchy, utilizing Go, xterm.js, and budget-friendly AI models like DeepSeek and MiMo.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Suwu is a web-based remote shell inspired by the omarchy development environment.
- Built using Go and xterm.js alongside cost-effective coding AI models.
- Combines human architectural intuition with AI execution to resolve complex bugs.
Personal software projects often stem from a desire to bridge specific workflow gaps. Suwu was created to replicate a seamless web remote shell experience inspired by omarchy. The project utilizes a lightweight Go backend providing a PTY session paired with xterm.js for terminal rendering.
Previously, the developer had to constantly switch between browsers, native terminals, and IDEs to inspect code generated by AI coding agents or manage port forwarding. By centralizing the workflow into a web-based environment, Suwu eliminates the friction of jumping across multiple applications while building hobby web projects.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
For AI integration, the developer deliberately chose cost-effective and capable models such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi's MiMo 2.5 over expensive alternatives like GPT or Kimi. Expensive models often enforce rigid opinions due to their training, whereas cheaper models offer generous quotas and flexibility, which is ideal for building a highly opinionated daily-use tool.
"Cheap models make mistakes, though not as much as I do :)"
This project highlights the modern paradigm of human-AI collaboration in software engineering. While budget LLMs excel at generating React, TypeScript, and Tailwind code quickly, they often get stuck in infinite loops or UI inconsistencies. Human intervention is crucial to inspect runtime stacks, restructure UI components, and provide clear data expectations.
Development wasn't without technical hurdles; initial experiments with ghostty-web encountered blocking issues regarding mouse click reporting and clipboard handling. Leveraging coding agents, the developer successfully pivoted to a more robust foundation combining xterm.js and libghostty-vt.
Ultimately, Suwu became self-hosting—used to develop its own features compiled into a single Go binary. Now available as an open-source project on GitHub, it serves as a functional tiling window manager and development tool suite for everyday use.
Source: Dev.to
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