Quickstart

partyline makes your terminal multiplayer — and encrypted. Run it in your own shell; teammates join with one command. Your tools, nothing new to learn.

Install

Pick whichever you trust most — every release ships a checksums.txt, the installer verifies the SHA-256 before installing, and macOS builds are Apple-signed & notarized.

macOS

Homebrew (recommended):

$ brew install partyline-sh/tap/partyline

Or the installer:

$ curl -fsSL https://partyline.sh/install.sh | sh

Linux

The installer downloads the latest release for your arch and verifies its SHA-256 before installing:

$ curl -fsSL https://partyline.sh/install.sh | sh

Rather read it first? curl -fsSL https://partyline.sh/install.sh | less

Debian / Ubuntu — download the .deb from Releases, then:

$ sudo dpkg -i partyline_*_linux_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL — download the .rpm, then:

$ sudo rpm -i partyline_*_linux_amd64.rpm

Any platform — download the binary

Grab a prebuilt, checksummed binary straight from github.com/partyline-sh/cli/releases (amd64 / arm64), verify it against checksums.txt, and put it on your PATH.

Sign in (once)

$ partyline login

Approve the code in your browser. Your token is saved to ~/.partyline/token.

Start a session

$ partyline

This shares your $SHELL. partyline prints an encrypted join link — the encryption key rides in the link's # fragment, and the relay that connects you never sees it. (How encryption works →)

Share & join

Send the link. Anyone joins with:

$ partyline join 'https://partyline.sh/j/<code>#k=<key>'

Joiners are view-only until you grant typing. Treat the link like a password — anyone who has it can join and decrypt the session.

Controls inside a session

  • /pwho — who's on the session
  • /phud [on|off] — show the session HUD (who's on, each person's role, who's driving); /phud on keeps it refreshing as people join, leave, or take the keyboard
  • /pgrant [name] — grant/revoke typing (host)
  • /plock — stop new joiners (host)
  • /pinvite <email> — invite someone
  • /pexit — leave (host: end the session)
  • /phelp — help · or the prefix ctrl-\ then w g r d q

Ctrl-C does not quit — the session runs in raw mode (like ssh), so Ctrl-C goes to your shell. Quit with /pexit, ctrl-\ q, or exit.

Next: Sessions · Teams & invites · Security · CLI reference.