TUI (Ink Terminal UI)

The TUI is a modern terminal interface built with Ink. It offers modal overlays, mouse selection, and non-blocking input — all while sharing the same sessions and config as the classic CLI.

Launching the TUI

monoclaw --tui

Features

Modal overlays

The TUI uses modal dialogs for:

Model selection — Visual picker with provider icons
Tool configuration — Toggle tools with checkboxes
Session browser — Search and resume past sessions
Skills hub — Browse and install skills with previews

Mouse support

Select text — Click and drag to highlight
Click buttons — Interactive buttons and toggles
Scroll — Mouse wheel scrolls long outputs
Context menus — Right-click for quick actions

Non-blocking input

Type while Mona is working. Your input appears in a separate input box and doesn't interfere with streaming output.

Rich rendering

Markdown — Headers, lists, code blocks, tables
Syntax highlighting — Code blocks with language detection
Images — Terminal image rendering (Kitty/iTerm2 inline images)
Progress bars — For long-running operations

Keybindings

Key	Action
`Enter`	Send message
`Shift+Enter`	New line
`Esc`	Close modal / Cancel operation
`Ctrl+B`	Record voice (voice mode on)
`Ctrl+C`	Interrupt agent
`Ctrl+D`	Exit
`Tab`	Focus next element
`Shift+Tab`	Focus previous element
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate lists
`Mouse click`	Select/activate elements

Layout

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MonoClaw TUI — Mona                         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                             │
│  [Chat output area]                         │
│  • Streaming responses                      │
│  • Tool call results                        │
│  • Markdown rendering                       │
│                                             │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ > Type your message...        [Send] [🎤]  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Configuration

# ~/.monoclaw/config.yaml
tui:
  theme: dark          # dark | light | auto
  font_size: 14
  show_timestamps: true
  inline_images: true  # Kitty/iTerm2 only

Compatibility

The TUI works best in:

Kitty — Full feature support including images
iTerm2 — Full feature support including images
WezTerm — Full feature support
Ghostty — Full feature support
VS Code terminal — Good support (enable Kitty protocol for Shift+Enter)
Windows Terminal — Good support
Alacritty — Good support (enable mouse)

Switching between CLI and TUI

Both share the same sessions and config. Switch anytime:

monoclaw        # Classic CLI
monoclaw --tui  # TUI