kollabor-tui 0.5.8

Terminal UI primitives for Kollabor: design system, key parsing, terminal state, visual effects

kollabor-tui

kollabor-tui is the terminal UI package for Kollabor.

It owns rendering primitives, terminal state, input parsing, design-system components, widgets, status layout, modals, fullscreen sessions, message display, tool display, and alternate-view support. TUI code in the app should use these components rather than writing directly to terminal renderer internals.

Current Role

• Provide the design system used by messages, status widgets, modals, and tools.
• Track terminal size and layout state through shared helpers.
• Coordinate message display and alternate-buffer/fullscreen transitions.
• Parse keyboard input and route it through modal/status/input controllers.
• Render tool calls, thinking blocks, profile modals, command menus, and widgets.
• Provide reusable widgets for plugin/config UI surfaces.

Architecture

Module/Directory	Responsibility
design_system/	themes, colors, icons, gradients, boxes, inline widgets
terminal_state.py	terminal dimensions and global state helpers
terminal_renderer.py	main terminal active-area renderer
message_coordinator.py	message flow and alternate-buffer coordination
message_display_service.py	message display policy and suppression logic
message_renderer.py / tool_display.py	message/tool formatting
render_loop.py / render_layout.py	render triggers and screen regions
input/ / input_handler.py	input loop, key handling, command mode, paste
status/	status layout, widgets, navigation, inline editors
modals/	modal state, overlays, actions, renderers
fullscreen/	fullscreen plugin/session manager and renderer
altview/	alternate-view stack/session/display queue
widgets/	text, dropdown, checkbox, tree, slider, file browser widgets
display_tap.py / buffer_manager.py	display capture and buffering

Usage

from kollabor_tui import T, get_terminal_size, solid_fg

width, height = get_terminal_size()
line = solid_fg("hello".ljust(width), T().primary)

For application rendering, prefer MessageDisplayCoordinator, fullscreen manager/session APIs, and terminal-state helpers. Avoid direct manipulation of TerminalRenderer render-state internals.

Known Gaps

• Rendering behavior is sensitive to terminal lifecycle, alternate buffers, and resize events; risky changes need read-only lifecycle tracing before patches.
• Some display policy lives across message_display_service.py, message_coordinator.py, and tool_display.py; regression tests should cover classification/display paths together.
• The package exposes many public imports from __init__.py; a smaller stable facade would make downstream usage clearer.
• Visual behavior often needs real terminal or screenshot-style verification in addition to unit tests.

Roadmap

Phase 1: Rendering stability

• Document the steady-state draw, modal/fullscreen transition, and resize recovery contracts.
• Add focused regression tests for tool display classification and suppression.
• Keep terminal size access centralized through terminal_state.py.

Phase 2: Public API cleanup

• Split stable public APIs from compatibility exports.
• Add examples for widgets, status widgets, fullscreen plugins, and altviews.
• Make design-system usage patterns consistent across all TUI surfaces.

Phase 3: Verification tooling

• Add repeatable terminal/screenshot verification for fullscreen and complex render paths.
• Improve diagnostics for render loop hibernation, buffering, and active-area state.
• Document plugin UI extension points with real examples.

Development

Targeted validation examples:

python -m py_compile packages/kollabor-tui/src/kollabor_tui/*.py
python -m pytest tests/unit/mcp/test_mcp_status_plugin.py -q

Dependencies

• kollabor-events

License

MIT