glide·sh

Fast, stateless, SSH-only infrastructure automation built in Rust.

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Features

• Blazing fast — built in Rust with async SSH, executes across hundreds of hosts concurrently
• Zero dependencies — no agent, no runtime, no Python on target machines. Just SSH.
• Stateless — no state files or databases. Desired state is computed fresh every run.
• Idempotent — two-phase check/apply pattern. Run plans repeatedly, only necessary changes are applied.
• Modern config — uses KDL for clean, readable inventory and plan files
• 7 built-in modules — shell, package, user, systemd, container, file, disk
• Dry-run support — preview changes before applying them
• Interactive TUI — real-time progress with a terminal UI (with non-TTY fallback)

Install

Download the latest binary from GitHub Releases:

curl -L https://github.com/alessiopcc/glidesh/releases/latest/download/glidesh-linux-amd64 -o glidesh
chmod +x glidesh
sudo mv glidesh /usr/local/bin/

From source

Requires Rust 1.86+.

git clone https://github.com/alessiopcc/glidesh.git
cd glidesh
cargo build --release

The binary will be at target/release/glidesh.

Quick Start

Define your targets in inventory.kdl:

group "web" {
    host "web-1" "192.168.1.10" user="deploy"
    host "web-2" "192.168.1.11" user="deploy"
}

Describe the desired state in plan.kdl:

plan "setup" {
    target "web"

    step "Install nginx" {
        package "nginx" state="present"
    }

    step "Start nginx" {
        systemd "nginx" {
            state "started"
            enabled #true
        }
    }
}

Run it:

glidesh run -i inventory.kdl -p plan.kdl

Preview changes without applying:

glidesh run -i inventory.kdl -p plan.kdl --dry-run

Documentation

Full documentation is available at the glidesh documentation site.

Examples

See the examples/ directory for ready-to-use examples:

Example	Description
hello-echo	Minimal example — deploy an HTTP echo server
web-server	Nginx with templated config
user-setup	Create users with SSH keys and groups
container-app	Containerized app with ports and volumes
disk-management	Dynamic disk formatting with register/loop
multi-tier	Multi-group setup with plan includes
external-module	External plugin module to set system MOTD
jump-host	Connect to hosts through an SSH bastion
host-module	Run a command once and broadcast its result to every host

License

Licensed under the MIT License.