There was a stretch of days where my terminal tabs felt like they were slowly multiplying behind my back.

I’d open a new project “just to try something,” hop into a client repo to fix a bug, jump into another folder because I remembered I needed to update something “real quick,” then spin up yet another experimental idea at 1 a.m. before bed. Suddenly I had four different terminals open, each running something important, each shouting logs at me, and absolutely no memory of which script belonged to which project.

And honestly?
I love creating projects.
That’s half the reason my workflow got so chaotic in the first place.

But eventually I realized a pattern:
I wasn’t spending time coding — I was spending time managing coding.

I wanted one place, a calm little command center, where I could see all my projects, what scripts they had, what was running, what wasn’t, and what was broken. No more guessing. No more hunting. No more “oh cool, I’m on the wrong branch again.”

So I built the tool I always wished I had — one place to manage all my local projects without drowning in terminals.

Why I Built Localhost Hub

At first it started with a simple frustration:
I was tired of typing npm run dev in the wrong directory.

Then it was the constant flipping between terminals.
Then it was forgetting which ports were in use.
Then it was accidentally installing dependencies in the wrong folder.
Then it was juggling frontend and backend manually every morning like some weird ritual.

And eventually I hit that moment every developer recognizes:

“Okay… this is dumb. I should automate this.”

That’s where Localhost Hub began — not as a product idea, but as the tool I needed to stay sane.

What I Wanted From It (and Why)

Here’s how the app works, but explained in the way it grew out of my own annoyances:

1. “Just scan my projects, please.”

My Projects folder is basically a nesting doll of ideas, experiments, client work, half-built things, and “I’ll come back to this someday” repos.

So I built directory scanning — point the app at a folder and it finds every package.json inside it.

No more babysitting directories.

2. “Let me run scripts without thinking about them.”

If a project has scripts, Localhost Hub lists them with start/stop buttons.

That’s it. No remembering names. No mistyping. No wondering if something is still running in a ghost terminal.

3. “If I’m starting the frontend, I probably want the backend too.”

My daily routine used to be:

cd frontend
npm run dev
cd ../backend
npm run dev
oh wait, wrong backend, cd ../backend-api
npm run dev

You get the idea.

So I added Workspaces — a way to bundle scripts across multiple projects and launch them together in one click.

4. “Please just tell me what’s broken.”

Sometimes I’d run a project and it would explode immediately because I forgot to:

• install dependencies
• pull changes
• switch branches
• or clean up something messy

So Localhost Hub shows small, quiet cues:
git status, package checks, expected ports, detected URLs.

Nothing fancy — just enough so I don’t get blindsided.

5. “Let me stay in the same mental space.”

Flipping between terminals, editors, and logs adds friction.
So inside Localhost Hub each project gets a simple dashboard:

• scripts
• real-time logs
• packages
• ports/processes
• git cleanliness

All in one view, all in one place.

Not groundbreaking.
Just less mental context-switching.

What Surprised Me

The first time I used the app on my own messy setup, I didn’t expect the feeling of… calm.

It wasn’t about speed.
It wasn’t about convenience.
It was about clarity — not having dev environments scattered across terminal tabs and nested folders.

I had built something that let me focus again.

And that’s when I realized:
Sometimes the best tools aren’t the ones with the most features — they’re the ones that remove friction you’ve been carrying around for years.

Closing Thoughts

If you’re the kind of developer who loves starting new projects, or bounces between multiple repos daily, or constantly loses track of what’s running where… you might know exactly the pain that led me to build this.

Localhost Hub wasn’t meant to be “the next big dev tool.”
It was meant to be a tool that makes my own messy, creative workflow feel more manageable — and maybe it’ll resonate with someone else too.

If you’ve built something similar, or have your own hacks for taming local development chaos, I’d genuinely love to hear them. These little personal tools are often the most honest things we create.

UPDATE: If anyone is interested in trying this tool then it's available on GitHub. I have releases for .Deb and .AppImage. If you code on Mac or Windows then building on them is supported if you clone. I just don't use any of them and can't vouch for if it works well.