tui-design

name	tui-design
description	How to design TUI frontends. Use when requests involve TUI layout, spacing, colors, UX/UI and working on user-facing surfaces.

Core principles

1. Optimize for scanability first.

• Users should identify the screen, major sections, and key state in a few seconds.
• Prefer compact summaries over verbose dumps, use color to convey meaning.
• Put the most decision-relevant information first.

2. Design for terminal constraints.

• Width is scarce and volatile.
• Height is also volatile; assume partial visibility and build scrolling support for every surface you create.
• Avoid layouts that depend on exact pixel positioning or mouse interaction.

3. Use structure, not decoration, to create clarity.

• Good grouping, alignment, color, emphasis should be used wherever possible.
• Follow the 60/30/10 rule: 60% foreground color or faint variation of it, 30% primary color, 10% other colors (success/error/warning/secondary etc)
• Add chrome only when it explains the screen or improves navigation.
• Remove labels and lines that repeat information already obvious from context.

4. Show cached/known state immediately, then hydrate progressively.

• Open the screen instantly.
• Render placeholders only for genuinely missing parts.
• Refresh slow sections asynchronously.

5. Meet the visual bar before shipping, not after feedback.

• A polished, styled surface is the requirement, not a follow-up. "Make it work, leave it ugly" is a defect.
• Build every bounded surface to this standard in the same change that introduces it. Do not ship an unstyled text-block surface intending to style it later, and do not wait for the operator to complain before meeting the bar.
• Reactive styling is banned: never bolt color/spacing/borders onto an already-shipped raw-text surface after the fact. Layout and emphasis are designed into the surface from the start.
• Compose surfaces through the render framework's layout/style/widget primitives. Do not hand-assemble screens by concatenating strings, splicing ANSI escapes, or computing cursor row/column by manual line arithmetic — that path is what produces unstyled-then-hacked surfaces.
• Run the screen-review checklist (bottom of this skill) before the surface is considered done.

Surface choice

Use native scrollback for ongoing/log-style surfaces

Use the terminal's main screen and native scrollback when the UI is fundamentally append-only:

• chat transcripts
• logs
• command output streams
• timelines
• activity feeds
• Only ONE native scrollback surface is allowed per entire app. Avoid re-emission of the scrollback history as much as possible.

Rules:

• Once a line is emitted, do not rewrite or repaint history unless resize absolutely requires reflow.
• Prefer appending new information instead of replaying the whole screen.
• This mode should feel like a high-quality terminal session, not a canvas app.

Use alt-screen for full-screen destinations

Use the terminal alternate screen for surfaces that conceptually replace the current screen:

• pickers
• dashboards
• settings screens
• dedicated status pages
• process lists
• inspectors
• modal navigation destinations

Rules:

• Treat alt-screen as navigation to a separate destination, not as transcript detail.
• Preserve the main-screen scrollback underneath; returning should restore it intact.
• Full-screen destinations should not depend on replaying main-screen history on entry.
• If the screen is not append-only, it probably belongs in alt-screen.

Layout rules

Hierarchy

Use a consistent hierarchy:

• screen title or primary section labels
• primary value lines
• secondary metadata lines
• grouped subsections
• warnings or failure states near the affected section

Section structure

A good section usually looks like:

• title in a strong accent color
• 1-3 high-value lines
• optional grouped items under subheaders
• one blank line between major sections

Avoid:

• walls of labels
• repeated prefixes
• raw debug dumps unless explicitly requested
• explicit empty states where they can be inferred by vacuous truth, such as "0 overrides" or "no problems detected"

Padding and spacing

• Use vertical spacing more than horizontal indentation.
• Use one blank line between major sections.
• Use two blank lines between groups of major sections (highest level of separation)

Alignment

• Align repeated structures to the same column when it improves scanability.
• For rows like label | bar | value | meta, pad the labels so bars align vertically.
• Keep grouped items visually parallel.
• When width gets tight, shorten the least important part first.

Text emphasis

Bold

Use bold for:

• titles
• primary values
• important state words like clean, dirty, on, off, fast

Do not bold entire dense blocks unless the whole line is a key summary.

Faint text

Use faint for:

• timestamps
• helper metadata
• secondary IDs
• explanatory suffixes
• tree connectors

Do not use faint for:

• primary metrics
• important thresholds
• state the user must act on
• labels needed to understand the screen

Full-strength text

Use normal or bold full-strength text for:

• actual values
• section-relevant controls/state
• directory headers that group visible items
• threshold lines like Compaction at ...

Color rules

Use color semantically, not decoratively.

Recommended roles

• Primary: section titles, subsection counters, navigation headings
• Green/Success: healthy/safe/available/clean/ahead-positive/good remaining quota
• Yellow/Warning: warnings, toggles like fast, medium caution, partial depletion
• Red/Error: dirty/error/behind-negative/critical depletion
• Muted: secondary metadata, timestamps, decorations (trees, ascii symbols, dividers, separators)
• Default foreground: normal readable body text

Color discipline

• Prefer one accent color for structure and semantic colors for status.
• Avoid rainbow rows.
• Keep primary values readable in monochrome terminals.
• Never rely on color alone; the wording must still make sense.

Symbols and line art

Prefer ASCII first for broad compatibility.

Use Unicode only when it materially improves clarity and is widely supported:

• box or tree connectors like ├─ / └─
• bullets like •. Use largest dot available by default to make it visible.
• block characters for progress bars
• Avoid Nerd fonts or icons unless the user asks or already used in codebase.
• NEVER use emoji for anything.

Guidelines:

• Tree structures are excellent for "items belong to this directory/group".
• Avoid heavy decorative box drawing unless the app really needs frames.

Progress bars

Use progress bars for quantities that benefit from immediate spatial reading:

• quota remaining
• context usage
• task progress

Guidelines:

• Keep bars on a single line with label and summary when possible.
• Use semantic fill color based on health, if applicable.
• Clamp for narrow widths; if space is tight, reduce bar width before dropping the summary.
• Use the render framework's drawing primitives (gauge/progress, styled rows) when they simplify rendering and remain visually stable; keep interactive behavior (input, cursor, selection, navigation) in the app model rather than in behavior-owning widgets.

Information design

• Each screen should have a way to surface errors or toasts/transient messages to the user. Prefer reusable architecture and UI for error/toast surfacing.
• Each screen should indicate loading in some way. No blank screens, no freezes, no placeholder values.

What not to include

Remove:

• redundant section titles repeated in body lines
• implementation details unless useful to operators
• long raw command output when a summary is enough
• placeholders like none when silence is cleaner and no ambiguity is introduced

Summarize aggressively

Merge information to improve density

Example:

• Use Pro subscription instead of repeated Subscription + Plan pro

Prefer grouped, counted lists:

• 3 skills
• directory header
• tree items

Responsive behavior

Narrow width strategy

When width shrinks:

1. preserve section titles
2. preserve primary value text
3. shorten metadata
4. shrink bars
5. drop optional suffixes only last

Never let ANSI styling corrupt wrapping or truncation. Pre-rendered styled lines must go through ANSI-aware width handling.

Height strategy

• Assume the user may only see the top section at first.
• Put high-value sections first.
• Make all screens scrollable.
• Do not assume the entire screen fits at once.

Loading and caching

Progressive loading

• Open first, load second.
• Cache slow data in memory when repeated opens are expected.
• Render cached state immediately if it is still useful.
• Refresh in background and merge results by section.

Interaction guidance

• Keep visible controls minimal.
• Hidden keybindings are acceptable only when the screen is otherwise obvious and low-risk.
• If the screen is read-only, avoid control clutter.
• Refresh affordances should exist only if they earn their screen space.

Screen review checklist

Before shipping a TUI screen, check:

• Does it open instantly?
• Does it still look good at narrow widths?
• Are titles, values, and metadata clearly differentiated?
• Are colors semantic and restrained?
• Are repeated rows aligned?
• Is faint text only used for secondary information?
• Does scrolling reveal lower sections cleanly?
• Does alt-screen usage match the screen's purpose?
• Can the main scrollback be restored cleanly?
• Are cached and loading states honest?