Terminal.Gui

Cross-platform UI toolkit for building sophisticated terminal UI (TUI) applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux/Unix.

Version 2.0 Has Been Released

Terminal.Gui enables building sophisticated console applications with modern UIs:

• Responsive TUI - Easy to use, innovative, layout system enables console apps as responsive as any responsive web page.
• Performant and Scalable - Built for modern TUIs - fast, double-buffering-based rendering; Tables and Tree Views scale to infinite elements with sorting and filtering.
• Keyboard First; Mouse First Too - Optimized for TUI experiences where the user's hands never need to leave the keyboard; full mouse support too.
• Rich Built-in Widgets (Views) - Text editors, buttons, checkboxes, trees, tables, markdown, linear ranges, menus, selectors, and more.
• Visualizations - Charts, graphs, progress indicators, and color pickers with TrueColor support.
• Text Editors - Full-featured text editing with clipboard, undo/redo, and Unicode support
• Fully Configurable - Themes, colors, key bindings, and settings are all customizable and persistable.
• File Management - File and directory browsers with search and filtering, supporting Nerdfonts and coloring.
• Wizards and Multi-Step Processes - Guided workflows with navigation and validation.
• Cross-Platform - Consistent experience on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Apps Work In-line or Full Screen - Build CLI tools like Claude Code/Copilot/Codex CLI that scroll with the terminal (in-line) or full screen.

See the Views Overview for available controls and What's New in v2 for architectural improvements.

Quick Start

Install the Terminal.Gui.Templates, create a new TUI app, and run it:

dotnet new install Terminal.Gui.Templates
dotnet new tui-simple -n myproj
cd myproj
dotnet run

Run the comprehensive UI Catalog demo to explore all controls:

dotnet run --project Examples/UICatalog/UICatalog.csproj

Simple Example

using Terminal.Gui.App;
using Terminal.Gui.ViewBase;
using Terminal.Gui.Views;

using IApplication app = Application.Create ();
app.Init ();

using Window window = new () { Title = "Hello World (Esc to quit)" };
Label label = new ()
{
    Text = "Hello, Terminal.Gui v2!",
    X = Pos.Center (),
    Y = Pos.Center ()
};
window.Add (label);

app.Run (window);

See the Examples for more.

Showcase

See the Showcase for applications built with Terminal.Gui.

Documentation

Comprehensive documentation is at gui-cs.github.io/Terminal.Gui.

Getting Started

• Getting Started Guide - First Terminal.Gui application
• API Reference - Complete API documentation
• What's New in v2 - New features and improvements

Migration & Deep Dives

• Migrating from v1 to v2 - Complete migration guide
• Application Architecture - Instance-based model and IRunnable pattern
• Layout System - Positioning, sizing, and adornments
• Keyboard Handling - Key bindings and commands
• View Documentation - View hierarchy and lifecycle
• Configuration - Themes and persistent settings

See the documentation index for all topics.

Installing

dotnet add package Terminal.Gui

Or use the Terminal.Gui.Templates:

dotnet new install Terminal.Gui.Templates

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md.

History

See gui-cs for project history and origins.