All features

One terminal, shared by the room.

Every participant in the workspace sees the same bash session and the same output. The interviewer and candidate can both type commands. There is no secondary shell or multiplexer to configure.

Start freeSee pricing

Screenshot coming soon

Use cases

When this feature earns its keep.

Three concrete patterns. Use them as templates for your own setup.

Let a candidate run their code their way, not just via the Run button

Some candidates prefer to run tests with a specific command (pytest -v, go test ./..., mvn test). The shared terminal lets them do that directly without the interviewer needing to translate the output.

Demonstrate a concept by typing commands live

An interviewer who wants to show what happens at the filesystem level, or demonstrate a library API interactively, can type in the terminal and the candidate sees the output immediately.

Run a build step that the Run button does not cover

Multi-step builds (make, gradle, cargo) can be executed from the terminal. Both participants see the build progress as it happens, line by line.

Setup

How the setup looks.

The terminal is available in any workspace from the terminal panel at the bottom of the IDE. No configuration is needed.

Same workspace, same auth, same collaboration features as every other Typelets workspace. See all features

  1. Open the terminal panel

    Click the terminal icon in the workspace toolbar or press the keyboard shortcut shown in the toolbar tooltip. A bash session inside the Firecracker microVM starts immediately.

  2. Type commands as you would in any terminal

    The working directory starts at the workspace root. All files in the workspace file tree are present. Standard POSIX tools are available (ls, cat, grep, curl is blocked by the no-network policy).

  3. Both participants see the same output

    Output is streamed to all connected participants over the same WebSocket that syncs the editor. There is no polling delay. What one person types, everyone sees.

FAQ

Can both the interviewer and candidate type at the same time?
Yes. The terminal is a shared bash session and both participants can type. Concurrent input is interleaved at the shell level, which can produce confusing output if two people type simultaneously. In practice, participants take turns.
Does the terminal have network access?
No. The bash session runs inside the Firecracker microVM, which has no network interface. curl, wget, apt, pip install (from PyPI), and other network-dependent commands will fail with a connection error.
Is the terminal history kept in the recording?
Yes. All terminal output is captured in the session recording, time-stamped, and replayable in the Replay tab after the session ends.
What shell is available?
bash is the default shell. The version and available POSIX tools depend on the language runtime image. For example, the Python image runs bash 5 on a Debian base; the Go image uses the same base. You cannot switch to zsh or fish during beta.

Start interviewing in under a minute.

No card, no install, no yaml. Sign up, create a workspace, share the link. That's it.

Free during beta · No credit card · Cancel anytime