ALI - Action Language Interpreter

Compose complex tmux commands from regular phrases. Pure command aggregator - outputs commands, never executes them.

Quickstart

# Install
uv tool install ali-tool  # Recommended
# OR
pip install ali-tool

# Initialize tmux integration
ali --init tmux
# Then reload tmux: tmux source ~/.tmux.conf

# Use
ali GO .2              # → tmux select-pane -t .2
ali SPLIT pop          # → tmux display-popup -w 80% -h 80% -d "$PWD" -E 'bash'
ali EDIT file.txt pop  # → tmux display-popup ... 'micro file.txt'
ali WIDTH 012          # → Distribute panes evenly
ali ECHO ed?           # → Popup editor, pipe output to send-keys

Press C-b a in tmux to open ALI prompt after initialization.

Architecture

ALI is a pure command aggregator - it only outputs commands, never executes them.

Input → Parser → Router → Resolver → Output
         ↓         ↓         ↓
      Grammar  Commands  Templates

Core Components

• Parser - Tokenizes input using plugin grammars
• Router - Matches patterns to find commands
• Resolver - Expands templates with conditionals and services
• Registry - Manages plugins and their services

Template Engine

# Conditionals
exec: "{?target:tmux select-pane -t {target} && }command"

# Array lookups  
exec: "{direction[left:-h -b,right:-h,up:-v -b,down:-v,pop:display-popup]}"

# Service composition
exec: "{split} 'micro {file}'"  # Uses split service from tmux

Plugin Development

Plugins are YAML-only data files that define grammar, commands, and services.

# plugin.yaml
name: example
version: 1.0
description: Example plugin
# Grammar
grammar:
  item: {type: string}
  direction: {values: [left, right, up, down, pop]}
# Commands  
commands:
  - match: {verb: ACTION, item: present}
    exec: "{split} '{item}'"
# Services
services:
  process: "tool --process"
# Selectors
selectors:
  item?:
    type: stream
    exec: "selector"

See the plugin documentation for more patterns.

Examples

Navigation

ali GO .2          # Go to pane 2
ali GO :3          # Go to window 3
ali GO ?           # Visual pane selector

Splits & Layout

ali SPLIT          # Split right (default)
ali SPLIT left     # Split left
ali SPLIT pop      # Open popup shell
ali WIDTH 012      # Distribute panes evenly

Editing

ali EDIT file.txt       # Edit in right split
ali EDIT file.txt pop   # Edit in popup
ali VIEW file.txt       # Read-only view

Layout

ali LAYOUT         # Interactive layout picker
ali LAYOUT '1|23'  # Apply layout expression
ali TERMTAP        # Open termtap companion popup

Stream Operations

ali ECHO ed?       # Edit in popup, pipe to send-keys
ali COPY br?       # Browse in popup, copy to clipboard

Ideas

• Multi-stage selectors — Pipe selectors together: br? | ed? (browse, then edit the result)
• Shell completions — Generate from verb/grammar data for bash/zsh/fish

Development

# Clone and install dev version
git clone https://github.com/angelsen/ali.git
cd ali
uv tool install -e .

# Test — ALI outputs commands, never executes
ali GO .2
ali SPLIT right | cat   # verify clean stdout

REPL Debugging

from pathlib import Path
from ali_tool.core import ServiceRegistry, Router

registry = ServiceRegistry()
registry.load_plugins(Path('./src/ali_tool/plugins'))
router = Router(registry)

router.execute("SPLIT right")  # see output
router.last_state               # inspect parsed state

License

MIT - see LICENSE