Terminal UIs in Dart, done right.

dart_tui is an Elm-style TUI framework — a clean Model–Update–View core, a full component library, and Lipgloss-quality styling, all in pure Dart.

Browse components GitHub

❯dart pub add dart_tui

dart run example/showcase.dart

Everything you need to build in the terminal

A complete toolkit — architecture, components, styling and animation — with none of the boilerplate.

Model–Update–View

The same pure, testable architecture as Elm and Bubble Tea — state in, view out.

27+ components

Spinners, tables, trees, lists, inputs, forms and more — batteries included.

Lipgloss styling

True-color RGB, borders with titles, padding, gradients and SGR attributes.

Spring animation

Harmonica-style damped-spring easing for smooth progress, scroll and motion.

Async commands

Cmd handles timers, HTTP, subprocesses and any async work, delivered as messages.

Canvas compositing

Paint styled blocks at any (x, y) with z-index layering for dashboards and HUDs.

Zero-flicker renderer

Cell-level diffing writes only changed cells, with synchronized-update support.

One-shot helpers

promptSelect, promptConfirm, promptInput plus gum-style filter, spin and pager.

Fast startup

Kernel snapshots cut warm-JIT to ~500 ms; AOT compiles to a native binary.

Quick start

A whole app in one file

Extend TeaModel, implement update and view, and hand it to a Program. State is immutable, updates are pure, and the renderer does the rest.

Read the guide How MVU works

dart

import 'package:dart_tui/dart_tui.dart';

void main() async {
  await Program(
    options: const ProgramOptions(altScreen: true),
  ).run(CounterModel());
}

final class CounterModel extends TeaModel {
  CounterModel({this.count = 0});
  final int count;

  @override
  (Model, Cmd?) update(Msg msg) {
    if (msg is KeyMsg && msg.key == 'up') {
      return (CounterModel(count: count + 1), null);
    }
    if (msg is KeyMsg && msg.key == 'q') return (this, () => quit());
    return (this, null);
  }

  @override
  View view() => newView('Count: $count\n\n↑ to add · q to quit');
}