# Terminal UI Context

**Purpose**: Terminal UI (TUI) patterns, CLI animations, and command-line interface design

**Last Updated**: 2026-01-07

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## Overview

This subcategory will contain patterns and best practices for building terminal user interfaces using libraries like Ink, Blessed, and native terminal capabilities.

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## Planned Content

### Core Files (Future)

| File | Description | Priority |
|------|-------------|----------|
| `tui-patterns.md` | Terminal UI component patterns and layouts | high |
| `cli-animations.md` | Terminal animations, spinners, progress bars | high |
| `ink-components.md` | React Ink component patterns | medium |
| `blessed-patterns.md` | Blessed.js patterns and widgets | medium |
| `terminal-styling.md` | ANSI colors, chalk, terminal theming | medium |

### Planned Topics

- **Layout patterns**: Boxes, borders, flexbox-like layouts
- **Interactive components**: Menus, forms, selects, inputs
- **Progress indicators**: Spinners, progress bars, loading states
- **Terminal animations**: Frame-based animations, smooth transitions
- **Color and styling**: ANSI escape codes, chalk, gradient text
- **Keyboard handling**: Key bindings, shortcuts, navigation
- **Terminal detection**: Capability detection, fallbacks

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## Example Libraries

### React-based TUI
- **Ink** - React for CLIs
- **Pastel** - React-like TUI framework

### Traditional TUI
- **Blessed** - High-level terminal interface library
- **Blessed-contrib** - Widgets for blessed (charts, gauges)
- **Terminal-kit** - Comprehensive terminal manipulation

### Styling
- **Chalk** - Terminal string styling
- **Gradient-string** - Gradient colors in terminal
- **Boxen** - Create boxes in terminal

### Progress/Animation
- **Ora** - Elegant terminal spinners
- **CLI-progress** - Progress bars
- **Listr** - Terminal task lists

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## Usage

**When this subcategory is populated**, use it for:
- Building CLI tools with rich interfaces
- Creating terminal-based dashboards
- Implementing interactive command-line applications
- Adding animations and progress indicators to CLI tools

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## Related Categories

- `ui/web/` - Web UI patterns
- `development/` - General development patterns

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## Status

⏳ **Placeholder** - This subcategory is planned but not yet populated. 

To contribute content here, follow the MVI principles:
1. Extract core concepts (1-3 sentences)
2. List key points (3-5 bullets)
3. Provide minimal example
4. Link to full documentation

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## Used By

**Agents**: cli-developer, terminal-specialist, devops-specialist (future)