RUST_TUI SYSTEM MONITOR: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

A high-performance, stateful Terminal User Interface (TUI) engineered for real-time system telemetry. This application provides deep visibility into hardware utilization, network throughput, and process-level resource allocation with minimal system overhead.

1. Core Technical Foundations

The architecture is built upon the Rust safety model, ensuring zero-cost abstractions and memory-safe hardware interfacing. Key dependencies include:

• Ratatui (v0.26+): An immediate-mode rendering engine. Unlike retained-mode UIs, it reconstructs the interface state on every 500ms "tick," ensuring the visual representation is an exact reflection of kernel data.
• Sysinfo (v0.31+): A sophisticated abstraction layer that interfaces with system-specific APIs (such as /proc on Linux) to retrieve hardware metrics.
• Crossterm (v0.27+): Manages the terminal "Raw Mode" lifecycle, allowing the application to bypass standard line-buffering and handle keyboard interrupts (like 'q' to exit) with sub-millisecond latency.

2. Functional Architecture

A. Stateful Data Acquisition (src/system.rs)

The application utilizes a persistent SystemTracker struct. This is a critical design choice for calculating time-series data:

• Network Delta Tracking: Real-time throughput (KB/s) is calculated by measuring the variance in total bytes received between two discrete points in time.
• Dynamic Sorting: Implements an unstable partial sort on the global process list, ensuring the top 50 resource consumers are prioritized for visibility.
• Metric Normalization: Raw kernel values are normalized into human-readable formats (e.g., converting 64-bit byte counts into Megabytes).

B. Immediate-Mode UI Pipeline (src/ui.rs)

The UI is built using a nested constraint-based layout engine that scales dynamically to any terminal dimensions:

• Geometric Layout: The screen is divided into four primary horizontal sectors using Layout::default().
• Resource Gauges: Provides high-contrast visual bars for CPU, RAM, and Swap utilization.
• Telemetry Tables: A structured data grid for process management, providing fixed-width column alignment for PID, Process Name, CPU%, and Memory usage.

C. Execution Lifecycle (src/main.rs)

The main controller manages the bridge between user input and the refresh loop:

• Event Polling: Uses a non-blocking poll mechanism to check for user input every 500ms.
• Terminal Restoration: Implements a strict cleanup sequence that restores terminal raw mode, alternate screen buffers, and cursor visibility upon application termination.

3. Implementation Details

• Language: Rust (Edition 2021)
• Update Frequency: 500ms (Adjustable)
• Sorting Logic: CPU-heavy prioritization using partial_cmp.
• String Handling: Lossy UTF-8 conversion for non-standard process names to prevent application panics.

4. Operational Keybindings

Key	Action
Q	Graceful Shutdown (Restores Terminal State)
Refresh	Automatic (Asynchronous 500ms Interval)

5. Build and Deployment

To compile the application with full release optimizations:

cargo build --release
./target/release/rust_tui