eddacraft-tui

This repository is a read-only mirror. The canonical source for eddacraft-tui lives inside the Anvil project repository. Direct commits and source PRs against main here are not accepted — main is force-pushed by the mirror automation whenever the canonical tree changes, and any local commits will be overwritten on the next sync.

How to depend on this crate

Depend on the crates.io release, not on git main:

[dependencies]
eddacraft-tui = "0.2"

main is mirror-managed and may be force-pushed at any time. Release tags (eddacraft-tui-v*) are append-only and never rewritten by the mirror job — pin to a tag if you need a frozen reference.

How to report bugs or propose changes

Issues are open on this mirror — file them here and a maintainer will triage and forward into the canonical project as needed. Source PRs opened against this mirror are auto-closed by the pr-redirect.yml workflow with a link to the contribution guide; auto-close protects your work, because main here is force-pushed by automation on every canonical change and any local commits would be silently overwritten on the next sync. If a maintainer accepts a change you proposed, they will port it into the canonical tree and the next mirror sync will carry it out — credit goes via a Co-Authored-By: trailer on the ported commit.

Why this layout

Anvil is the load-bearing consumer of eddacraft-tui. Hosting the canonical source in the Anvil monorepo lets widget and consumer changes ship atomically without a publish-then-bump round trip; mirroring out and publishing to crates.io preserves the public trust surface for external users. See CONTRIBUTING.md "External contributors" section for the contribution path that applies from this mirror.

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eddacraft-tui

A curated, themed, animation-ready Ratatui component library. Drop-in compatible with ratatui 0.30. It gives you a polished widget set, the pretext reflow-free streaming text engine, a JSON-driven UI renderer, smooth animations, composable overlays, and responsive layout primitives — with theming and shell branding fully optional. The default theme follows the eddacraft Terminal Standard, but nothing forces you to use it.

Why eddacraft-tui over vanilla ratatui?

	ratatui	eddacraft-tui
Core widget set	✓	✓
Curated themed widgets (status, data, …)	—	✓
pretext two-phase text layout	—	✓
json-render JSON → terminal renderer	—	✓ (json-render)
Themed spinners, progress & status	—	✓
Image pane (Kitty / Sixel / iTerm2)	—	✓ (image)
Big-text branded splashes	—	✓ (big-text)

Theming and shell branding are optional. ShellBranding::Plain (the default) gives you a clean header/footer with no logo mark. Implement the Theme trait for a completely custom palette and semantic roles. The brand-specific spinner presets (.anvil(), .eddacraft()) are just ergonomic helpers.

Headline features

json-render — declarative JSON UI specs in the terminal

eddacraft-tui provides a generic engine (developed by the eddacraft team as part of the Anvil/TUIDASH work) for the @json-render/core flat element spec format. The spec format and overall approach were inspired by Vercel’s json-render product. A spec describes a tree of components (Stack, Grid, Card, Heading, Text, Table, Alert, charts, etc.) using a flat id-referenced structure. The crate parses it, validates structural integrity against a Catalog (unknown types, dangling/cyclic children, missing root), and renders it via a pluggable TuiRegistry.

serde/serde_json are behind the json-render feature so the core library stays free of them. A separate producer (build step, server, LLM-emitted artefact, …) can ship one UI description that the TUI renders with no additional glue code.

While the initial consumer and example specs are dashboards and monitoring surfaces, the engine is not dashboard-specific. The base components are general layout and content primitives, the catalogue is extensible, and features like data binding ($data references), sanitisation for untrusted specs, and responsive breakpoints (Narrow/Medium/Wide) make it suitable for many declarative UI use cases (detail views, status pages, settings surfaces, LLM-generated interfaces, etc.).

[dependencies]
eddacraft-tui = { version = "0.2", features = ["json-render"] }

use eddacraft_tui::json_render::{
    base_registry, parse, render_spec, validate, Catalog, RenderSpec, TuiRegistry,
};

let spec_json = r#"{"root":"page","elements":[...]}"#;
let spec: RenderSpec = parse(spec_json).expect("valid JSON");
validate(&spec, &Catalog::base()).expect("spec is valid");

// In your render loop, draw the spec to a ratatui Frame:
let registry: TuiRegistry = base_registry();
render_spec(&spec, &registry, frame, area);

Components consult shared width breakpoints (Narrow / Medium / Wide) so a single spec degrades gracefully: grids collapse to one column, tables progressively drop columns, etc. Thresholds are tuned for real terminal sizes (80×24, 120×40, 200×60, …).

See the json_render API docs for the base element set and the TuiComponent / TuiRegistry extension points.

pretext — reflow-free text layout for streaming AI

Two-phase text layout inspired by Cheng Lou's Pretext for the browser. pretext measures word widths once with unicode-width, caches the layout per container width, and re-runs only on resize. Streaming tokens land in a frame with no reflow stutter; container resizes invalidate the cache and re-measure in a single pass. Exclusion zones let text flow around moving shapes — a sidebar that animates, a live chart. The widget itself is zero-sized: all caching lives on PretextState, so caching works correctly across moves and reparenting. See Pretext layout below for a worked example.

Curated themed widget library

The widgets/ module ships a curated set of production-ready components with a default theme that follows the eddacraft Terminal Standard (easily replaced by implementing Theme). Highlights: TextInput, Editor, Select, Confirm (inputs); Spinner, ProgressBar, ParallelProgress, StatusBadge, StatusBar (status); Container, Divider, Header (layout); DataTable (sortable, themed ▲/▼ indicators), Tree (expand/collapse via TreeState), LogPanel (data); OverlayStack + Layer + Placement (overlays for modals, toasts, command palettes); HelpBar (auto-generated key hints that stay in sync with your KeyHandler bindings); PretextWidget (text reflow); and Hideable, Disableable, Padded wrappers. See Widgets below for the full reference.

Other standouts include smooth animated progress (call animate_tick each frame; the library handles easing), ParallelProgress with per-task status, ETA calculation, and live spinners, plus careful engineering details like iterative tree teardown to avoid stack overflows on deep hierarchies.

Theming + animated progress

EddaCraftTheme provides the default 8-colour palette and semantic Role tokens. ProgressBar and ParallelProgress animate toward their targets (250 ms quad-out by default). Your event loop just calls animate_tick(delta_ms) each frame (and can check is_animating() to decide whether to short-poll input for smooth playback). The underlying animation engine is vyfor/animate. See docs/animations.md for the wiring pattern.

Brand marks are provided via ShellBranding (Plain, Edda, Anvil, Custom, …) and the convenience spinner presets, but are never required.

Quick start

[dependencies]
eddacraft-tui = "0.2"

use eddacraft_tui::prelude::*;

let theme = EddaCraftTheme;

// Plain (unbranded) shell chrome is the default and recommended for most apps.
let inner = render_shell(
    frame, area,
    ShellBranding::Plain,   // or Custom("[*]"), Edda, Anvil, ...
    "myapp", "Main", "q quit  j/k move",
    &theme, env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION"),
);

// Most widgets only need a &impl Theme. Brand presets are optional helpers:
let spinner = Spinner::new(&theme).label("Loading...");
// ... or Spinner::new(&theme).anvil().label("Forging...");

ParallelProgress can show a live animated spinner for the "Running" state (brand mark is configurable). render_shell supports a few reusable marks plus ShellBranding::Plain and ShellBranding::Custom("…").

Modules

• theme/ — Theme trait + Role tokens for semantic styling, plus the built-in EddaCraftTheme (the default palette)
• keyboard/ — key binding definitions, action mapping, and introspectable Binding table
• widgets/ — reusable TUI widgets (see Widgets below)
• pretext/ — two-phase prepare/layout text engine for streaming AI output and dynamic reflow
• surface.rs — base Surface trait for TUI screens
• shell.rs — shared shell chrome renderer

Default theme (EddaCraftTheme)

The built-in EddaCraftTheme follows the eddacraft Terminal Standard palette. All colours are exposed through the Theme trait, so you can implement your own without touching widget code.

Token	Colour
Void	rgb(13, 13, 15)
Structure	rgb(42, 42, 46)
Off-White	rgb(235, 235, 235)
Ghost Grey	rgb(133, 133, 138)
anvil Ember	rgb(204, 85, 0)
edda Growth	rgb(46, 139, 87)
Brick Red	rgb(201, 74, 74)
Dull Amber	rgb(208, 140, 56)

The Role enum (Primary, Accent, Success, BorderEmphasis, …) gives widgets a semantic handle; custom themes can override role_style centrally.

Widgets

The widgets/ module ships a curated component set. Highlights:

• Inputs — TextInput, Editor, Select, Confirm
• Status — Spinner, ProgressBar, ParallelProgress, StatusBadge, StatusBar
• Layout — Container, Divider, Header
• Data — DataTable (sortable, themed ▲/▼ indicators), Tree (expand/collapse via TreeState), LogPanel
• Overlays — OverlayStack + Layer + Placement for layered modals; Modal and Toast/ToastStack as ready-made consumers
• Chrome — HelpBar auto-renders key hints from KeyHandler::default_bindings(), so help text stays in sync with the keymap
• Text reflow — PretextWidget + PretextState for cached two-phase layout (see Pretext layout below)
• Wrappers — Hideable, Disableable, Padded decorate any Widget/StatefulWidget without bloating each widget's API

Optional features

Feature	Adds
image	ImagePane — themed wrapper around ratatui-image (Kitty / Sixel / iTerm2 / halfblocks)
big-text	BigBanner — themed wrapper around tui-big-text for branded splashes
lifecycle	TerminalGuard raw-mode / alternate-screen RAII guard + panic restore
runner	Small fallback CLI shell — global flags + first-level commands (enables lifecycle)
json-render	Parser + registry for the @json-render/core declarative spec format
test-utils	Snapshot testing helpers re-exported for downstream crates

[dependencies]
eddacraft-tui = { version = "0.2", features = ["image", "big-text"] }

Fallback CLI shell (runner)

Building a terminal tool that doesn't have a CLI yet? The runner feature ships a small fallback shell so you don't hand-roll the same envelope every time. It parses shared global flags (--help, --version, --theme, --no-tui, --config) and selects a first-level command, then hands the rest to you — in ~3 lines, with no clap-weight dependency (it uses zero-dep lexopt internally).

[dependencies]
eddacraft-tui = { version = "0.3", features = ["runner"] }

fn main() -> std::process::ExitCode {
    eddacraft_tui::runner::launch_cli(MyTool::new())
}

It is a fallback, not a CLI framework. It intentionally does not do nested command trees, argument validation, generated per-command --help, environment-variable binding, or shell completions. A serious CLI wants those — and that is the expected outcome, not a missing feature.

When you reach that point, bring your own parser and hand the runner pre-parsed options via launch_with. You keep full control of your CLI surface and still get the runner's command dispatch, config handoff, and lifecycle/theme integration. The runner never owns or re-exports your parser, so its API stays independent of your clap major version.

[dependencies]
clap = { version = "4", features = ["derive"] }
eddacraft-tui = { version = "0.3", features = ["runner"] }

use clap::Parser;
use eddacraft_tui::runner::{launch_with, RunnerMode, RunnerOptions};

#[derive(Parser)]
#[command(name = "mytool", version)]
struct Cli {
    command: String,
    #[arg(long)]
    theme: Option<String>,
    #[arg(long = "no-tui")]
    no_tui: bool,
    #[arg(long)]
    config: Option<std::path::PathBuf>,
}

fn main() -> std::process::ExitCode {
    let cli = Cli::parse(); // clap owns help, validation, completions, …
    let options = RunnerOptions {
        command: Some(cli.command),
        config_path: cli.config,
        theme: cli.theme,
        mode: if cli.no_tui { RunnerMode::Plain } else { RunnerMode::Tui },
        ..RunnerOptions::default()
    };
    launch_with(MyApp::new(), options)
}

See the runner module docs for the full contract.

Pretext layout

pretext is a two-phase text layout engine inspired by Cheng Lou's Pretext library for the browser. Measure word widths once with unicode-width, cache the layout per container width, and re-run only on resize — eliminating reflow stutter for streaming AI output and animated layouts.

use eddacraft_tui::prelude::*;
use ratatui::widgets::StatefulWidget;

let theme = EddaCraftTheme;
let mut state = PretextState::new("streaming tokens flow here…");
let widget = PretextWidget::themed(&theme);

// Each frame:
// widget.render(area, frame.buffer_mut(), &mut state);

// On new tokens:
state.append(" more text from the model");

// Flow text around moving shapes:
state.set_exclusions(vec![ExclusionZone::circle(40, 8, 5)]);

The widget itself is zero-sized — all caching lives on PretextState. At unchanged container width subsequent renders skip layout entirely; the cache is invalidated by a width change, by any text mutation (set_text, set_styled_text, append, append_styled), by set_exclusions, or by an explicit invalidate_layout() call.

Interactive demos (public showcase)

The interesting demos that used to live in the prototype pretext-tui repo now ship in this crate so they appear on the public mirror and stay in lock-step with the engine:

# Streaming / exclusion / masonry tabs
cargo run -p eddacraft-tui --example pretext_demos

# Agent-style dashboard (streaming + spinning exclusion + sidebar reflow)
cargo run -p eddacraft-tui --example pretext_agent_dashboard

Keys for pretext_demos: Tab / 1–3 switch tabs · Space pause · r reset streaming · +/- token speed · arrows move the exclusion · q quit.

Documentation

Extended guides live in docs/. Contributor docs remain at the repo root (CONTRIBUTING.md, RELEASE.md, SECURITY.md).

Links

• Public crate: https://crates.io/crates/eddacraft-tui
• Canonical source (Anvil monorepo): https://github.com/eddacraft/anvil
• Pretext demos: cargo run -p eddacraft-tui --example pretext_demos

Acknowledgements

Smooth progress/spinner animations are powered by vyfor/animate.

The pretext two-phase layout engine and widget were originally prototyped in joshuaboys/pretext-tui (now archived; the engine and demos live here), a terminal port of ideas from Cheng Lou's browser Pretext library.

The layered overlay model (OverlayStack / Layer / Placement) draws inspiration from Cursive's StackView.

The json-render engine and supporting types were developed by the eddacraft team (TUIDASH work in the Anvil monorepo) for portable declarative UI specs.

Licence

Apache-2.0