Terminal.Gui.clet 1.0.0-develop.1

One binary. Every prompt. JSON out. Go home.

Turns every Terminal.Gui View into a CLI command — typed inputs, a real file picker, a Markdown viewer — with consistent JSON output, predictable exit codes, and full keyboard/mouse support. Works for humans and AI agents alike.

Install

Release

brew install gui-cs/tap/clet              # macOS / Linux
winget install gui-cs.clet                # Windows 10/11
dotnet tool install -g Terminal.Gui.clet  # any platform with .NET SDK

Pre-Release

Tracks Terminal.Gui's develop channel — a new clet prerelease lands on NuGet for every TG develop publish. See D-020.

dotnet tool install -g Terminal.Gui.clet --prerelease

What it replaces

Usage

Human usage

# Pick from a list
clet select "prod" "staging" "dev"

# Pick a file from a tree dialog
clet pick-file --root ./src --title "Choose a source file"

# Confirm before a destructive action
clet confirm "This will delete 40k rows. Continue?"

# Render a Markdown file — full-screen, dismiss with q / Esc
clet md ./CHANGELOG.md

# See all available clets
clet list

AI agent usage (--json)

# Structured elicitation — agent gets a typed result, not raw text
clet select --json "prod" "staging" "dev"
# → {"schemaVersion":1,"status":"ok","value":"staging"}

# Pick a file with a timeout
clet pick-file --json --root ./src --timeout 30s
# → {"schemaVersion":1,"status":"ok","value":"src/User.ts"}

# Confirm an action
clet confirm --json "Apply this patch?"
# → {"schemaVersion":1,"status":"cancelled"}   (exit 130)

# Discover available clets once per session
clet list --json
# → {"schemaVersion":1,"clets":[{"alias":"select","kind":"input","resultType":"string",...},...]}

Exit codes: 0 success · 2 usage error · 130 cancelled (SIGINT convention).

Demo

🎬 Recording coming soon.

Alpha feedback

clet is in friends-and-family alpha (milestone tracker). If something doesn't work, looks wrong, or is just confusing, file an issue. Include:

• clet --version output (e.g. 1.0.0-alpha (Terminal.Gui 2.0.2-develop.37)).
• Your terminal + OS (e.g. "Windows Terminal on Windows 11", "iTerm2 on macOS 15").
• What you ran, what you expected, what happened.

No Discussions, no separate forum — Issues is the only feedback channel during alpha. The faster the loop, the better the v1.0.

FAQ

Q: Why not just use gum (or glow, or bat, or dialog)?

Each of those is good at one thing. clet is the unification, with a real UI toolkit underneath. Every clet has full mouse support, configurable keybindings, themed colors, and one consistent navigation model. clet pick-file is Terminal.Gui's FileDialog — a real tree with sortable columns, extension filters, and breadcrumbs, not a fuzzy-filter over find output. And because inputs and viewers live in one tool, you get the same keys and colors whether you're picking a file or reading a Markdown document.

For a shell user who only needs read-with-validation, gum is fine. We are not competing for that user.

Q: What's the difference between an input clet and a viewer clet?

• Input clets (select, text, pick-file, …) prompt for a value and return a typed result: exit 0, {"schemaVersion":1,"status":"ok","value":…}.
• Viewer clets (md) render content for the user to read and return on dismiss: exit 0, {"schemaVersion":1,"status":"ok"}.

Both share theming, keybindings, mouse support, and the JSON envelope.

Q: What does the JSON output look like?

{ "schemaVersion": 1, "status": "ok",      "value": "prod" }   // input selected
{ "schemaVersion": 1, "status": "ok" }                         // viewer dismissed
{ "schemaVersion": 1, "status": "cancelled" }                  // Esc / Ctrl-C (exit 130)
{ "schemaVersion": 1, "status": "error", "code": "validation", "message": "…" }

Q: Exit codes?

0 success · 1 no-result · 2 usage error · 130 cancelled (SIGINT convention).

Q: Cancellation and timeouts?

Esc and Ctrl-C cancel input clets; q, Esc, and Ctrl-C dismiss viewer clets. --timeout <duration> (e.g. --timeout 30s) cancels automatically — useful for AI agent scripts.

Q: Which clets ship in v1.0?

Input (14): text, int, decimal, select, multi-select, confirm, pick-file, pick-directory, date, time, duration, color, attribute-picker, range

Viewer (1): md (Markdown via Terminal.Gui's built-in Markdown View)

Run clet list to see what's available in your installed version.

Q: Theming?

Whatever theme is set in your TG ConfigurationManager applies to every clet automatically.

Q: Do I need .NET installed?

No for brew install and winget install — those ship a self-contained NativeAOT binary (~8 MB, no runtime needed).

Yes for dotnet tool install -g Terminal.Gui.clet.

Q: What's the --prerelease channel?

Every Terminal.Gui develop NuGet publish triggers a matching clet prerelease push (versioned 2.x.y-develop.NN to mirror TG's own develop versioning). Stable users see no churn — dotnet tool install -g Terminal.Gui.clet still resolves to the latest non-prerelease, and brew/winget only ship release builds. If you want the bleeding edge, pass --prerelease. See D-020 for the rationale.

Q: How do I report a bug or give feedback during alpha?

File an issue. That's the only feedback channel — no Discussions, no forum. See the Alpha feedback section above for what to include.

Further reading

• Press release & customer voices
• Implementation spec
• Design decisions log
• Release rollback runbook