tui-fundamentals
This skill should be used when the user asks to design, create, choose, modernize, or review a terminal UI, text user interface, curses app, dashboard, wizard, REPL shell, prompt flow, or CLI with interactive screens. PROACTIVELY activate for: TUI architecture, terminal-ui design, framework selection, curses vs modern framework, full-screen vs inline UI, app state modeling, widget composition, command palette, keyboard-first workflow, terminal dashboard, interactive CLI UX, and cross-platform terminal product planning. Provides: architecture patterns, framework decision rules, UX guardrails, scope boundaries, and production readiness checklists.
What this skill does
# TUI Fundamentals, Architecture, and Framework Selection Use this skill when the task is about the shape of the terminal product: what kind of TUI to build, which abstraction to use, how to organize state, or whether a full-screen terminal UI is the right answer. ## First decision: is a TUI appropriate? Prefer a rich TUI when users need continuous visual feedback, multi-step navigation, keyboard-driven exploration, selection among many items, or a dashboard-like control surface. Prefer a line-oriented CLI, prompts, or plain output when the flow is short, scriptable, primarily automation-focused, or likely to be used by screen readers and CI systems. A production terminal product often ships both: - A scriptable CLI surface for automation, accessibility, logs, and non-TTY use. - An optional TUI for exploration, monitoring, bulk selection, or guided workflows. ## Architecture rules 1. **Separate model, update, and view.** Business state should not print directly to the terminal. Rendering consumes state; input produces events; update logic transforms state. 2. **Treat terminal size as input.** Layout must be recomputed from width and height on every resize. Never bake in one terminal size. 3. **Own terminal lifecycle in one place.** Raw mode, alternate screen, mouse, focus, keyboard protocols, and cleanup should be centralized. 4. **Make every action keyboard-operable.** Mouse support is an enhancement, not the primary navigation model. 5. **Design for degradation.** `TERM=dumb`, non-TTY output, missing color, Windows console differences, tmux/screen, SSH, and CI should have clear behavior. 6. **Avoid hidden global terminal writes.** Logs, progress, and background task output must not corrupt the screen. ## Framework selection quick matrix | Need | Strong default | |--|--| | Rust full-screen app with precise rendering | Ratatui + Crossterm | | Python product-grade app with widgets, CSS, async workers | Textual | | Python rich output, progress, tables, markdown, logs | Rich | | Python REPL, shell, completions, complex prompt input | prompt_toolkit | | Classic dependency-light Unix TUI | curses/ncurses | | Go Elm-style app with composable commands | Bubble Tea + Bubbles + Lip Gloss | | Go batteries-included forms/tables/tree views | tview over tcell | | Go portable low-level cell engine | tcell | | React-style terminal components in Node | Ink | | Node DOM-like full-screen widgets | Blessed | | .NET full-screen views | Terminal.Gui | | .NET rich CLI output and prompts | Spectre.Console | Read `references/framework-selection.md` before committing to a framework in a new project. ## Product design checklist - Define the primary user journey in one sentence. - Decide whether the app is full-screen, inline, prompt-based, or hybrid. - List required environments: Windows Terminal, classic conhost, macOS Terminal, iTerm2, GNOME Terminal, Alacritty, SSH, tmux/screen, CI, and logs. - Define minimum terminal dimensions and the small-screen fallback. - Define exit keys, destructive confirmation rules, and recovery instructions. - Define non-interactive equivalents for every essential action. - Decide how help is exposed: footer hints, `?`, command palette, `--help`, docs. ## Failure modes - Building a full-screen UI for a workflow that should be scriptable. - Choosing a low-level escape-sequence approach when a framework already solves layout, input, cleanup, and testing. - Mixing business logic with terminal writes, making tests brittle and rendering inconsistent. - Ignoring screen-reader users, CI, pipes, and `TERM=dumb` until late. - Assuming color, Unicode icons, Nerd Fonts, or mouse support are always available. ## Reference files - `references/framework-selection.md` - Detailed ecosystem comparison and decision tree. - `references/tui-architecture.md` - State, event, lifecycle, logging, and distribution patterns.
Related in Design
contribute
IncludedLocal-only OSS contribution command center. Auto-refreshes the user's in-flight PR and issue state on invoke so conversations start with full context — no need to brief Claude on what's in flight. Helps the user find issues to contribute to on GitHub, builds per-repo dossiers of what each upstream expects (CLA, DCO, branch convention, AI policy, draft-first, review bots, issue templates), runs deterministic gates before any external action so AI-assisted contributions don't reach maintainers as slop. State is markdown-only: candidate files at ~/.contribute-system/candidates/, repo dossiers at ~/.contribute-system/research/, append-only event log at ~/.contribute-system/log.jsonl. No database, no cloud calls. Use when the user asks about their PRs / issues / contributions, wants to find new work to take on, claim an issue, build/refresh a repo's dossier, or draft a Design Issue or PR. Trigger with "/contribute", "what's my PR status", "find a contribution", "claim issue X", "draft a Design Issue for Y", "refresh dossier for Z".
architectural-analysis
IncludedUser-triggered deep architectural analysis of a codebase or scoped subtree across eight modes — information architecture, data flow, integration points, UI surfaces, interaction patterns, data model, control flow, and failure modes. This skill should be used when the user asks to "diagram this codebase," "map the architecture," "show the data flow," "give me an ERD," "trace control flow," "find the integration points," "verify the layout pattern," "audit the UX architecture," or any similar request whose primary deliverable is mermaid diagrams plus cited reports under docs/architecture/. Dispatches haiku/sonnet sub-agents in parallel for per-mode exploration, then verifies every citation mechanically before any node lands in a diagram. Not for one-off prose explanations of code (use code-explanation) or for high-level system design from scratch (use system-design).
mcp
IncludedModel Context Protocol (MCP) server development and tool management. Languages: Python, TypeScript. Capabilities: build MCP servers, integrate external APIs, discover/execute MCP tools, manage multi-server configs, design agent-centric tools. Actions: create, build, integrate, discover, execute, configure MCP servers/tools. Keywords: MCP, Model Context Protocol, MCP server, MCP tool, stdio transport, SSE transport, tool discovery, resource provider, prompt template, external API integration, Gemini CLI MCP, Claude MCP, agent tools, tool execution, server config. Use when: building MCP servers, integrating external APIs as MCP tools, discovering available MCP tools, executing MCP capabilities, configuring multi-server setups, designing tools for AI agents.
react-native-skia
IncludedDesign, build, debug, and optimise high-polish animated graphics in React Native or Expo using @shopify/react-native-skia, Reanimated, and Gesture Handler. Use when the user wants canvas-driven UI, shaders, paths, rich text, image filters, sprite fields, Skottie, video frames, snapshots, web CanvasKit setup, or performance tuning for custom motion-heavy elements such as loaders, hero art, cards, charts, progress indicators, particle systems, or gesture-driven surfaces. Also use when the user asks for fluid, glow, glass, blob, parallax, 60fps/120fps, or GPU-friendly animated effects in React Native, even if they do not explicitly say "Skia". Do not use for ordinary form/layout work with standard views.
plaid
IncludedProduct Led AI Development — guides founders from idea to launched product. Six capabilities: Idea (discover a product idea), Validate (pressure-test the idea against fatal flaws, problem reality, competition, and 2-week MVP feasibility), Plan (vision intake + document generation), Design (translate image references into a design.md spec), Launch (go-to-market strategy), and Build (roadmap execution). Use when someone says "PLAID", "plaid idea", "help me find an idea", "product idea", "idea from my business", "idea from my expertise", "plaid validate", "validate my idea", "pressure-test", "is this idea good", "find fatal flaws", "validate the problem", "plan a product", "define my vision", "generate a PRD", "product strategy", "plaid design", "design from image", "translate image to design", "create design.md", "extract design tokens", "plaid launch", "go-to-market", "launch plan", "GTM strategy", "launch playbook", "plaid build", "build the app", "start building", or "execute the roadmap".
nextjs-framer-motion-animations
IncludedAdds production-safe Motion for React or Framer Motion animations to Next.js apps, including reveal, hover and tap micro-interactions, whileInView, stagger, AnimatePresence, layout and layoutId transitions, reorder, scroll-linked UI, and lightweight route-content transitions. Use when the user asks to add, refactor, or debug Motion or Framer Motion in App Router or Pages Router codebases, especially around server/client boundaries, reduced motion, LazyMotion, bundle size, hydration, or route transitions. Avoid for GSAP-style timelines, WebGL or 3D scenes, heavy scroll storytelling, or CSS-only effects unless Motion is explicitly requested.