MeshTerm

A modern, extensible command-line toolkit for tuning and exploring a MeshCore mesh through a serial- or Bluetooth-connected companion device.

MeshTerm is interactive by default (a full-screen Rich + prompt_toolkit TUI) and fully scriptable (every menu option is also a Typer subcommand). Every run is logged to SQLite, building a longitudinal history of the mesh.

Features

Feature	Status	What it does
Chat	✅ working	Live full-screen channel and direct messaging — a scrolling transcript with a pinned input line where sent and received messages stream together. Every message is logged to SQLite, unread counts show in the menu header, and chat send/history/list script the same from the CLI. Channels are picked here; edit them in config.
Channels	✅ working	Create, join, reorder, and share mesh channels — with QR codes and meshcore:// links.
Map	✅ working	Mesh nodes on a pannable street map, repeaters highlighted, fed by everything the monitor has overheard.
Device config	✅ working	View and change every setting (name, radio, behavior, experimental), with TOML backup/restore, channels, and gated destructive ops.
Device discovery	✅ working	Enumerate serial and Bluetooth LE companions, pick one interactively, and remember the last good default. A dropped link (unplug, power-off, or BLE out-of-range) is detected live and offers to reconnect.
Node list	✅ working	List this node and its known contacts — recency heat-map, overheard packet counts, full public keys with the path-hash prefix highlighted.
Trace	✅ working	A live trace screen: pick a target, watch each trace stream in hop by hop, with running per-hop medians and reliability.
TX-power optimization	✅ working	Sweep a remote node's transmit power live (coarse + refine + verify), watch each level land, then decide whether to apply the winner.
Passive monitor	✅ working	Always-on background logger that records every overheard advert/telemetry (SNR, RSSI, location) to a longitudinal history while you use the app; live packet counts show in the menu header, the data feeds Nodes and Map, and meshterm monitor --seconds 60 captures a bounded window from the CLI.

Install

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Python 3.10+ is required (matching the meshcore library).

Usage

# Interactive menu (default)
meshterm

# Connect over Bluetooth instead of USB (address from `meshterm devices`)
meshterm --ble AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF info

# Scripted: every menu option is also a subcommand. A trace transmits exactly once —
# repeaters can blacklist nodes that burst traffic — so run it again to sample more.
meshterm trace --target Alice --profile yagi

# Force a route through specific repeaters (MeshCore-app style): comma-separated
# contact names and/or hex key prefixes, mixed freely. Blank lets the device route.
meshterm trace --target Alice --path "3d,f2,3d"
meshterm trace --target Alice --path "3d,Bravo-Repeater,f2"
meshterm tx-optimize --path "Bravo-Repeater,Alice" --samples 6 --step 3 --apply
meshterm info

# Messaging: live chat in the menu, or scripted from the CLI
meshterm chat                                  # interactive: pick a conversation, chat live
meshterm chat send --to Alice "on my way"      # direct message
meshterm chat send --channel 0 "net in 5"      # channel broadcast
meshterm chat history --to Alice
meshterm chat list

# Device configuration: view, set, back up, restore
meshterm config                       # show all current settings
meshterm config set radio_sf 9        # change one setting
meshterm config backup node.toml      # archive every setting to TOML
meshterm config restore node.toml --dry-run

# No radio attached? Use the built-in simulator for development.
meshterm --mock trace --target Alice

Architecture

MeshTerm is layered so features are added by dropping a single file in meshterm/tools/:

cli.py        Typer app; no subcommand -> interactive menu
context.py    AppContext (console, config, repository, device) dependency container
core/         Domain: models, config + device profiles, connection abstraction (+ mock)
tools/        Pluggable "menu options"; each self-registers and gets logging for free
services/     Algorithms (trace aggregation, tx search) — no UI
persistence/  SQLite schema, repository, structured logging
ui/           Rich theme/widgets + the full-screen TUI (screens, dialogs, map, chat)
viz/          Plotly renderers -> interactive HTML

Adding a feature means subclassing Tool, decorating it with @register, and implementing run(). The same registry builds both the CLI and the menu, and the base class wraps every execution in a logged runs row automatically.