TUI

TUI

CortexPrism ships with a custom Deno-native TUI framework (v0.48.0) providing flicker-free terminal rendering, rich components, and full keyboard interaction.

Architecture (src/tui/)

File	Purpose
buffer.ts	Double-buffered VirtualScreen with cell-level diff-and-flush
screen.ts	Screen management, terminal size detection (getTermCols()/getTermRows())
style.ts	Style system with ANSI color, bold, italic, underline support
component.ts	Class-based Component tree with lifecycle hooks (onMount, onUpdate, onDestroy, onResize, onKeyPress)
layout.ts	Layout engine — HSplit, VSplit, ScrollView, Box with flex/percentage sizing
renderer.ts	Renderer with SIGWINCH resize handling
input-engine.ts	Raw InputEngine with ANSI escape decoding and emacs-style keybindings (Ctrl+A/E/K/W/U, Alt+F/B/D, Ctrl+R history search)
themes/dark.ts	Dark theme
themes/light.ts	Light theme
themes/contrast.ts	High-contrast theme
hyperlink.ts	OSC-8 hyperlink rendering
progress.ts	Braille/ASCII spinners and progress bars
completions.ts	Completion provider for slash commands, file paths, agent names

Components (src/tui/components/)

Component	Description
Header	Title bar with session info
StatusBar	Footer with model, tokens, cost, session ID
TextInput	Multi-line input with cursor movement, history, selection
CompletionMenu	Floating dropdown for slash commands/file paths/agent names
MarkdownBlock	Headers, bold, italic, inline code rendering
CodeBlock	Syntax highlighting for TS/JS/Python/Go/Rust/Bash/SQL
DiffBlock	Unified diff with +/- coloring
ToolCard	Tool call status with spinner/checkmark/cross and duration
ChatView	Scrollable message list with streaming support

Layouts

Chat Mode (cortex agent chat)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Header (title)                                  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ChatView (scrollable messages)                  │
│                                                 │
│                                                 │
│                                                 │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ TextInput (> prompt)                            │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StatusBar (model | tokens | cost | session)     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

TUI Mode (cortex agent tui)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Header (title)                                  │
├───────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┤
│ ChatView (70%)        │ ToolPanel (30%)         │
│                       │ • ToolCard (sub_agent)  │
│                       │ • ToolCard (file_read)  │
│                       │ • ToolCard (file_write) │
├───────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┤
│ TextInput (> prompt)                            │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ StatusBar (model | tokens | cost | session)     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Slash Commands

12 slash commands available in interactive chat sessions:

Command	Description
/model <name>	Switch model mid-session
/compact	Trigger context compaction (runs automatically)
/status	Show session info (turns, tokens, cost)
/clear	Clear chat history
/save [file]	Save transcript to file
/load <file>	Load transcript from file
/export	Export session as markdown
/theme <name>	Switch theme (dark/light/contrast)
/diff	Show last file change
/review	Review pending approvals
/plan	Planning mode (runs automatically)
/help	List all commands
/! <cmd>	Bash command passthrough
/soul	Show soul context

Agent Exec Mode

Non-interactive one-shot mode for CI and scripting:

cortex agent exec "summarize this repo" --json
cortex agent exec "fix eslint config" --max-turns 5
cortex agent exec "write a script" -o output.sh

--json flag outputs { success, output, cost, durationMs, turns, tokensIn, tokensOut } for machine consumption.

CLI

cortex agent chat              # Interactive streaming chat (TUI)
cortex agent tui               # Full-featured TUI with tool panel
cortex agent exec <prompt>     # One-shot non-interactive execution

See Also

• Agent Loop — Core agent turn processing
• CLI Reference — All commands and their usage
• Workflow Engine — DAG workflows with step callbacks