Terminal & Claude Code/Codex

ServerCC provides a full-featured terminal for interacting with Claude Code and Codex. The terminal supports VT100/Xterm emulation with real-time bidirectional I/O.

Terminal Interface

Input Field

The terminal uses a dedicated input field at the bottom of the screen (not the system keyboard directly). This provides a better experience for composing multi-line prompts and interacting with Claude.

Multi-line Edit Mode

For longer prompts, switch to Multi-line Edit Mode — a full-height editor that lets you draft, review, and revise before sending. It pairs particularly well with voice-to-text keyboards: dictate a full paragraph, correct typos in-place, then send the whole thing to Claude or Codex in one shot.

While you edit, the underlying terminal input is kept in sync — what you see in the editor is exactly what will be delivered to the agent, so there are no surprises on send.

Customizable Quick Commands

The quick-command toolbar above the input field has two pages. The first page holds built-in chips such as /clear, Esc, and thinking-mode shortcuts. The second page is fully customizable — pin your favorite slash commands, literal keystrokes, or snippets that you reach for often.

Saved quick commands are stored app-wide (not per-workspace), so the layout you build follows you into every server and workspace. Tap a chip to insert its text at the current cursor position; tap a keystroke chip (e.g. Esc) to send that key directly to the agent.

Attaching Images

Tap the photo button next to the input field to attach images from your photo library — screenshots, mockups, diagrams, whiteboard photos. You can select multiple images; each is converted to JPEG, uploaded to the server over SFTP, and shown as a thumbnail chip above the input while you keep typing.

When you send the message, the attachments are handed to the agent as native image references — both Claude Code and Codex pick them up and can see the image content. Tap the ✕ on a chip to remove an attachment before sending.

Fullscreen Mode

Toggle fullscreen mode to maximize the terminal area. In fullscreen mode, the system keyboard is enabled directly for terminal input, and the bottom toolbar is hidden.

No Flicker Mode

No Flicker mode switches Claude Code to a full-screen TUI with tap/mouse support, significantly reducing screen flickering on slower or high-latency connections. Enable it in the workspace's Session Picker under Settings. See Workspace Settings for details.

Bottom Toolbar

The toolbar at the bottom shows three tabs of your choice, picked from four available ones in Settings → Preferences → Terminal → Bottom Toolbar Tabs:

  • Files — Open the file browser for this workspace
  • Git Diff — Review the working changes GitHub-style — see Git Diff
  • Skills — Manage Claude Code skills for this workspace
  • MCP — Configure MCP servers

Sessions, Ports, VNC, and the other workspace actions live in the top-right menu (⋯). If you prefer a completely clean screen, the Hide Bottom Toolbar toggle in the same Terminal settings removes the toolbar entirely.

Terminal Appearance

In Settings → Preferences → Terminal you can adjust the terminal font size with a slider (with a one-tap reset to the default). A smaller font fits more of Claude's output on screen; a larger one is easier to read at arm's length.

Login Flow

When starting Claude Code for the first time (or after session expiry), you'll need to authenticate:

1

Claude Code outputs a login URL in the terminal.

2

ServerCC detects the URL and shows a native Authentication Required alert with Open Login Page and Cancel buttons.

3

Tap Open Login Page to finish OAuth in the in-app Safari view. After logging in, copy the pairing code shown on the page and paste it into the terminal input field.

Session Lifecycle

When you navigate away from the terminal, you have several options:

  • Background — Keep Claude running in the background. The session appears in the Running tab and can be resumed later.
  • Exit — End the Claude session and close the terminal connection.

Reconnection

If the SSH connection drops (network change, server restart, etc.), ServerCC shows a reconnection banner and automatically attempts to reconnect with exponential backoff (up to 3 retries). You can also tap the banner to retry manually.

Pure Terminal

ServerCC also provides a Pure Terminal mode — a direct SSH shell without Claude Code/Codex. Access it from the server detail screen under the Terminal section. This is useful for:

  • Running system commands directly
  • Checking server logs
  • General server administration
  • Debugging connection issues