Terminal apps do not have to look like 1990s ncurses software. HQTUI owns the terminal directly — ANSI/VT sequences, a typed-array framebuffer, differential rendering, Braille graphics and truecolor — so a dashboard written in TypeScript can look and feel like a modern desktop app while starting instantly and running fine over SSH.

No ncurses. No browser DOM. No React. No native addon. No network access. Ever.

Install

bun add @profullstack/hqtui     # Bun is the default runtime
npm  add @profullstack/hqtui    # Node 22.6+ works too

Hello, terminal

import { createApp } from "@profullstack/hqtui";

const app = await createApp();

app.render(({ ui }) => {
  ui.panel({ title: "Hello" }, (panel) => {
    panel.text("Hello, terminal.");
  });
});

await app.start();

That is the whole API surface you need to start. createApp() already gives you a dark theme, truecolor with automatic 256/16-colour fallback, mouse tracking, the alternate screen, resize handling, 30fps adaptive rendering (15 over SSH), and a terminal that is restored no matter how the process dies — Ctrl+C, SIGTERM, or an uncaught exception.

A real dashboard

import { createApp } from "@profullstack/hqtui";

const app = await createApp({ fps: 30 });

app.render(({ ui, theme }) => {
  ui.grid({ columns: ["2fr", "1fr"], rows: [14, "1fr"], gap: 1 }, (grid) => {
    grid.panel({ title: "CPU" }, (p) => {
      p.graph({ values: cpuHistory, min: 0, max: 100, fill: true });
      p.meters(cores.map((value, i) => ({ label: `P${i}`, value })), { columns: 2 });
    });

    grid.panel({ title: "Memory" }, (p) => {
      p.meter({ label: "Used", value: 0.42, text: "6.7 GiB" });
      p.keyValues([{ label: "Cached", value: "4.0 GiB" }]);
    });

    grid.panel({ title: "Processes", colSpan: 2 }, (p) => {
      p.table({
        rows: processes,
        columns: [
          { key: "pid", title: "PID", width: 7, align: "right" },
          { key: "name", title: "Name" },
          { key: "cpu", title: "CPU%", width: 6, align: "right" },
        ],
      });
    });
  });
});

await app.start();

See it running

bunx @profullstack/hqtui-demo          # your real machine
bunx @profullstack/hqtui-demo --sim    # deterministic simulation

Six screens: dashboard, components, graphics, themes, input visualizer, stress test. Real metrics are collected on Linux, macOS and Windows with no native dependencies.

What is in the box


Layout	rows, columns, grid with spans, `"40%"`, `"2fr"`, `auto`, min/max, padding, gaps, clipping, responsive breakpoints
Widgets	panel, table, tree, list, log viewer, key/values, meter, gauge, donut, progress, sparkline, line/area/multi-series graph, histogram, heat bar, tabs, status bar, button, checkbox, toggle, radio, select, text input, modal, command palette, tooltip, badge, divider
Graphics	Braille canvas (2×4 pixels per cell), block/half-block/quadrant/ASCII modes, gradients, software alpha blending
Color	24-bit truecolor, automatic 256 and 16-colour quantization, `NO_COLOR`, monochrome and high-contrast modes
Themes	dark (default), dracula, nord, tokyo night, gruvbox, matrix, monochrome, high contrast, light — plus `defineTheme()`
Input	normalized keys with modifiers, SGR mouse (click, drag, scroll, move), bracketed paste, focus events, Tab focus traversal
Testing	headless renderer: `renderToText`, `renderToScreen`, `renderToAnsi`, `renderToHtml` — no TTY required

Testing your TUI

Terminal apps are usually untestable. Here they are not:

import { renderToScreen } from "@profullstack/hqtui";

const screen = renderToScreen(({ ui }) => ui.panel({ title: "CPU" }, (p) => p.text("72%")), {
  width: 40,
  height: 6,
});

expect(screen.contains("72%")).toBe(true);
expect(screen.cell(2, 0).fg).toBe(theme.title);

Performance

The screen is one grid of cells in four typed arrays — no object is allocated per cell. Each frame is diffed against the previous one and only the changed runs are written, with a model of the terminal's pen so no redundant escape sequence is emitted.

Changing CPU 72% to CPU 73% writes a single character, not a screen.

bun run bench

Runtimes

Bun is the default. Node 22.6+ runs everything unchanged (it strips TypeScript natively). Deno support is best-effort. Tested on Linux, macOS and Windows Terminal; degrades gracefully on limited terminals (no mouse, quantized color, ASCII instead of Braille).