3 ms·

What bothers me is that what I like about terminals is the scrolling workflow of writing commands and seeing my actions and outputs from various sources and pro

What bothers me is that what I like about terminals is the scrolling workflow of writing commands and seeing my actions and outputs from various sources and programs sequentially in a log. So what I want is a rich full-HTML multi-program scrolling workflow. Instead, people are combining the worst of both worlds. What are they doing? Give me superior UI in a superior rendering system, not inferior UI in an inferior rendering system, god damn it.

mccoyb 1y ago
Say more about what you mean by "multi-program scrolling workflow", if you don't mind
- teraflop 1y ago
  I think what they mean by "multi-program scrolling workflow" is just what you ordinarily get in a terminal window. You run command A, and below it you see its output. You run command B, and below it you see its output. And you can easily use the scroll bar to look at earlier commands and their output. The parent commenter seems to be asking for the same thing, but with rich text/media.
- breuleux 1y ago
  I mean a session that isn't limited to interaction with a single program. For example, if I have an agent in this paradigm, I want to easily interleave prompting with simple commands like `ls`, all in the same history. That's not what I'm getting with apps like claude code or crush. They just take over the entire terminal, and crush even quits without leaving a trace.
  - mccoyb 1y ago
    Thanks, thinking about this - I think there are several ways to serve this concern: one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server. Then you never leave your terminal. Presumably, you'd want this, but with some sort of interface _like_ these TUI systems?
    - breuleux 1y ago
      > one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server Yeah, I prefer something like that (which should be strictly easier to make than these elaborate TUIs). I could also be interested in a shell that supports it natively, e.g. with a syntax such as `-- this is my prompt! it's not necessary to quote stuff`. I'd also enjoy an HTML shell that can output markdown, tables and interactive plots rather than trying to bend a matrix of characters to do these things (as long as it's snappy and reliable). I haven't looked very hard, so these things might already exist.
      - spenczar5 1y ago
        Yes, I think that sounds like Warp. Personally, I find warp a bit disorienting, but it is indeed a more integrated approach.
    - wredcoll 1y ago
      > Thanks, thinking about this - I think there are several ways to serve this concern: one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server. Then you never leave your terminal. Presumably, you'd want this, but with some sort of interface _like_ these TUI systems? The whole advantage to a shell, and why people get so obsessed with it, is that they provide a standard interface to every program. Tuis break that by substituting their own ui. They also provide a standard output... limitation, really, which means you can suddenly do pipes. The future should look to capture both of those benefits. Everyone will get super mad, but html is honest to god a great way to do this. Imagine a `ls` that output html to make a prettt display of your local files, but if you wanted to send the list to another program you pass some kind of css selector `ls | .main-list.file-names.name` or something. It's not exactly beautiful but you get the idea.
      - yunohn 1y ago
        Apparently this is is how Powershell works vs Unix like unstructured text.
  - matsimitsu 1y ago
    You are probably looking for Mods (https://github.com/charmbracelet/mods https://github.com/charmbracelet/mods), their other CLI AI Agent tool that's not a TUI, but a commandline interface to AI Agents.
dedpool 1y ago
You can run it inside the terminal while still using your code editor with full support for diffs and undo. It works seamlessly with IDE like Cursor AI or VSCode, allowing multiple agents to work on different tasks at the same time, such as backend and frontend. The agents can also read each other’s rules, including Cursor rules and Crush Markdown files.
case 1y ago
This sounds kinda like https://sketch.dev/ https://sketch.dev/ Cc @crawshaw

mccoyb 1y ago

Say more about what you mean by "multi-program scrolling workflow", if you don't mind

teraflop 1y ago
I think what they mean by "multi-program scrolling workflow" is just what you ordinarily get in a terminal window. You run command A, and below it you see its output. You run command B, and below it you see its output. And you can easily use the scroll bar to look at earlier commands and their output. The parent commenter seems to be asking for the same thing, but with rich text/media.
breuleux 1y ago
I mean a session that isn't limited to interaction with a single program. For example, if I have an agent in this paradigm, I want to easily interleave prompting with simple commands like `ls`, all in the same history. That's not what I'm getting with apps like claude code or crush. They just take over the entire terminal, and crush even quits without leaving a trace.
- mccoyb 1y ago
  Thanks, thinking about this - I think there are several ways to serve this concern: one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server. Then you never leave your terminal. Presumably, you'd want this, but with some sort of interface _like_ these TUI systems?
  - breuleux 1y ago
    > one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server Yeah, I prefer something like that (which should be strictly easier to make than these elaborate TUIs). I could also be interested in a shell that supports it natively, e.g. with a syntax such as `-- this is my prompt! it's not necessary to quote stuff`. I'd also enjoy an HTML shell that can output markdown, tables and interactive plots rather than trying to bend a matrix of characters to do these things (as long as it's snappy and reliable). I haven't looked very hard, so these things might already exist.
    - spenczar5 1y ago
      Yes, I think that sounds like Warp. Personally, I find warp a bit disorienting, but it is indeed a more integrated approach.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    > Thanks, thinking about this - I think there are several ways to serve this concern: one could be having an agent as a server, where "prompting" is just a command `prompt ...` sent to the agent as a server. Then you never leave your terminal. Presumably, you'd want this, but with some sort of interface _like_ these TUI systems? The whole advantage to a shell, and why people get so obsessed with it, is that they provide a standard interface to every program. Tuis break that by substituting their own ui. They also provide a standard output... limitation, really, which means you can suddenly do pipes. The future should look to capture both of those benefits. Everyone will get super mad, but html is honest to god a great way to do this. Imagine a `ls` that output html to make a prettt display of your local files, but if you wanted to send the list to another program you pass some kind of css selector `ls | .main-list.file-names.name` or something. It's not exactly beautiful but you get the idea.
    - yunohn 1y ago
      Apparently this is is how Powershell works vs Unix like unstructured text.
- matsimitsu 1y ago
  You are probably looking for Mods (https://github.com/charmbracelet/mods https://github.com/charmbracelet/mods), their other CLI AI Agent tool that's not a TUI, but a commandline interface to AI Agents.

dedpool 1y ago

You can run it inside the terminal while still using your code editor with full support for diffs and undo. It works seamlessly with IDE like Cursor AI or VSCode, allowing multiple agents to work on different tasks at the same time, such as backend and frontend. The agents can also read each other’s rules, including Cursor rules and Crush Markdown files.

case 1y ago

This sounds kinda like https://sketch.dev/ https://sketch.dev/ Cc @crawshaw