Tachikoma.jl is a pure-Julia framework for building rich, interactive terminal applications. It uses an Elm-inspired Model/update!/view architecture with a 60fps event loop, double-buffered rendering, 30+ composable widgets, and built-in recording/export. GitHub: github.com/kahliburke/Tachikoma.jl Docs: kahliburke.github.io/Tachikoma.jl [hero demo] Install using Pkg Pkg.add("Tachikoma") Requires Julia 1.12+. What’s in the box Architecture — Define a Model struct, write update! for events, write view to render. The framework handles the event loop, frame pacing, and diff-based terminal output. 30+ widgets — Text inputs, text areas, code editor with syntax highlighting, data tables with column resize/sort, forms with validation, tree views, charts, sparklines, calendars, modals, dropdowns, markdown viewer, and more. Constraint layouts — Fixed, Fill, Percent, Min, Max, and Ratio constraints with nested horizontal/vertical splits. Draggable resizable pane borders with layout persistence via Preferences.jl. Animation — Tweens with 10 easing functions, physics-based springs with retarget!, timeline composition (sequence, stagger, parallel), and organic effects (pulse, breathe, shimmer, jitter, flicker, drift). Graphics — Three rendering backends: Braille dots (2x4 per cell), quadrant blocks (2x2), and pixel rendering via Kitty or sixel protocol (16x32 per cell). Vector drawing API with lines, arcs, circles, and filled shapes. 11 themes — Cyberpunk, retro, and classic palettes (Kokaku, Esper, Motoko, Kaneda, Neuromancer, Catppuccin, Solarized, Dracula, Outrun, Zenburn, Iceberg) with hot-swap switching at runtime. Async tasks — spawn_task! / TaskQueue for background work that delivers results back to the main thread as events, preserving the single-threaded Elm architecture. Cancel tokens, timers, and repeat scheduling. Recording & export — Live recording via Ctrl+R, headless record_app() / record_widget() for CI/docs, native .tach format with Zstd compression, export to SVG and GIF. Testing — TestBackend for headless widget rendering with char_at(), style_at(), row_text(), find_text() inspection APIs. Quick example A Game of Life in ~30 lines: using Tachikoma @kwdef mutable struct Life <: Model quit::Bool = false grid::Matrix{Bool} = rand(24, 80) .< 0.25 end Tachikoma.should_quit(m::Life) = m.quit function Tachikoma.update!(m::Life, e::KeyEvent) e.key == :escape && (m.quit = true) end function Tachikoma.view(m::Life, f::Frame) h, w = size(m.grid) g = m.grid nc = [sum(g[mod1(i+di,h), mod1(j+dj,w)] for di in -1:1, dj in -1:1) - g[i,j] for i in 1:h, j in 1:w] g .= (nc .== 3) .| (g .& (nc .== 2)) a, buf = f.area, f.buffer for i in 1:min(h, a.height), j in 1:min(w, a.width) g[i,j] || continue set_char!(buf, a.x+j-1, a.y+i-1, '█', tstyle([:primary,:accent,:success,:warning,:error][clamp(nc[i,j],1,5)])) end end app(Life()) Gallery Dashboard Form with Validation [dashboard] [form] Animation Showcase Todo List [anim] [todo] GitHub PR Viewer Animated Backgrounds [prs] [dotwave] Comparisons Tachikoma is designed full-screen interactive applications with their own event loop, like what you’d build with Textual (Python), Ratatui (Rust), or Bubbletea (Go). If you want to build a dashboard, data explorer, or game that takes over the terminal, that’s what Tachikoma is for. Tutorials The docs include step-by-step tutorials that build complete apps: Getting Started — A dice game covering model, input, layout, and widgets Dashboard — Multi-panel layout with charts, tables, and live data Todo List — CRUD app with forms, validation, and modal dialogs GitHub PRs — Async data fetching with DataTable and markdown rendering Animation Showcase — Tweens, springs, timelines, and organic effects Feedback, issues, and contributions welcome at github.com/kahliburke/Tachikoma.jl.

[image] kahliburke: I’m totally fine if you were to submit a PR that was 100% generated using LLM based coding assistants. … It would be super cool if you had your agent write a bunch of unit tests too, I think there are over 4k such tests in the framework now. That’s the sort of attitude that, among other things, strongly motivates me to avoid having anything to do with LLM-coded software.

[image] Mikhail_Kagalenko: That’s the sort of attitude that, among other things, strongly motivates me to avoid having anything to do with LLM-coded software. Hey, no offense taken. I encourage everyone to have the freedom to choose the code that they incorporate into their projects, the way they live their lives. It’s about agency, really … (wait, did I just hear someone say agent-sy??? guess it’s time to go work some more on my multi-agent coding and research tool that’s in the works — Seaworthy.jl … ? :eyes: ) (PS the em-dash was intentionally written by a human)

[image] Mikhail_Kagalenko: That’s the sort of attitude that, among other things, strongly motivates me to avoid having anything to do with LLM-coded software. It’s also very borderline with respect to the requirements for registered packages! There’s a very fine line here between AI-assisted coding and code deployed by LLMs without human intervention, aka vibe-coding, which is NOT acceptable for registered packages. While it’s great that you’re creating this framework, I would urge you to curb your AI enthusiasm just a little bit, and remember that the fundamental design, the quality, and reliability of your package are still your responsibility, and not something you can delegate to an LLM. Moving fast and breaking things is not something that leads to a healthy ecosystem

[image] goerz: It’s also very borderline with respect to the requirements for registered packages! There’s a very fine line here between AI-assisted coding and code deployed by LLMs without human intervention, aka vibe-coding, which is NOT acceptable for registered packages. I’m sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding your point here, but are you saying that what I’m doing is very borderline? Have you tried Tachikoma.jl? :laughing: Do you think that it’s “acceptable”? As for me, I think it’s pretty cool, pretty good, and just pretty. If you’re able to achieve Tachikoma.jl level quality without putting in some serious work (aka human intervention) please tell me what model you’re using because I want it. :thinking:

[image] kahliburke: Have you tried Tachikoma.jl? :laughing: Do you think that it’s “acceptable”? Only via checking out Sessions, and having a glance at the README. At this point, I do think it looks very interesting, and it also does seem “acceptable” by the standards of the General registry. This is largely a function of the automated tests being in place and a proper and complete documentation, without any obvious sign of slop. [image] kahliburke: but are you saying that what I’m doing is very borderline? I don’t know… maybe little bit… As I said, it’s a thin line, and for right now I think you’re staying on the right side of that line. You do seem a little bit more enthusiastic about the promise of agentic coding than I would necessarily consider “wise”. The one thing that I think crosses the line is the idea that it’s okay for someone to submit a vibe-coded PR that then is reviewed and merged by and LLM without a human being in the loop at all. I’m going to assume that comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and not something you do on a regular basis. [image] kahliburke: If you’re able to achieve Tachikoma.jl level quality without putting in some serious work (aka human intervention) Right, exactly, the “serious work” is a key part here. I do think you’re putting in that serious work, so you’re fine. But it’s easy to let things get away from you with agentic coding… These agents can very quickly produce more amounts of code than an human can reasonably still process. Once you end up with a system that is too byzantine (unnecessarily) for any human to still have a good understanding of the design and structure of the package, you’re in real trouble. I don’t think that’s necessarily where you’re heading with this package. But still, my instinct is to tell you to slow down a little :wink: Or, if not “you” then others who might be getting a little carried away with agents generating code for them, when they don’t have the experience to gauge the result in a meaningful way.

[image] goerz: I’m going to assume that comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and not something you do on a regular basis. No, I meant that sincerely. I would definitely do that.

@kahliburke you are doing an excellent work!

[image] goerz: Right, exactly, the “serious work” is a key part here. I do think you’re putting in that serious work, so you’re fine. But it’s easy to let things get away from you with agentic coding… These agents can very quickly produce more amounts of code than an human can reasonably still process. Once you end up with a system that is too byzantine (unnecessarily) for any human to still have a good understanding of the design and structure of the package, you’re in real trouble. I don’t think that’s necessarily where you’re heading with this package. But still, my instinct is to tell you to slow down a little :wink: Or, if not “you” then others who might be getting a little carried away with agents generating code for them, when they don’t have the experience to gauge the result in a meaningful way. I’m not trying to take over the conversation, but “vibe code” is something that’s going to be a part of our new reality, and we should all get on board. Open source exists because people give their time and energy to create software out of their free time. So, I truly believe that people in the open source community should have the freedom to do whatever they want. OpenSUSE has a great way of putting it: “The makers’ choice.” If I had access to agentic workflows back then, PrettyTables.jl and SatelliteToolbox.jl might have been way better than they are now. I spent ages trying to create a TUI framework for Julia in TextUserInterfaces.jl using NCurses, and I’m still just getting started. @kahliburke has created something much more powerful and advanced without using any external libraries. The result is clear: Tachikoma.jl works perfectly. I’m migrating a TUI for our satellite simulator, and it’s much faster than the ncurses version. So, my humble suggestion to @kahliburke is: continue doing whatever you are doing and wanting because the outcome is impressive!

Hello to all you robot lovers out there! Good news for you tonight, the Julia registry minions are hard at work packaging up the brand new 🌗 Tachikoma.jl v1.1.3 -- your terminal no longer has to live in the dark. 🌑 → ☀️ This release adds light mode with 13 new light themes (24 total), ANSI escape sequence rendering in Paragraph and ScrollPane, and per-row/per-cell styling for DataTable. Hit Ctrl+\ then Tab to browse the light theme pack — Paper, Latte, Sakura, Gruvbox, Frost, and more. Pixel canvases (sixel/Kitty) automatically match the active mode. Also fixes a Windows crash from a POSIX dup() call and a regression where sixel/Kitty canvases ignored light-mode backgrounds. Full release notes: Release v1.1.3 · kahliburke/Tachikoma.jl · GitHub

Quick update, pushing out a minor patch release right now: v1.1.4 - errors in @spawn’d apps no longer disappear into the void. Thanks to @Ronis_BR for identifying and reporting this. :satellite_antenna: Release v1.1.4 · kahliburke/Tachikoma.jl Patch release. Fix error swallowing when app() runs in a spawned thread (#20) — errors in view/update! are now printed to stderr and re-thrown Fix light-mode-dependent test failures in sixel/kitty...

[ANN] Tachikoma.jl — A terminal UI framework for Julia

Package Announcements

kahliburke March 17, 2026, 4:24am 83

No, I meant that sincerely. I would definitely do that.

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[ANN] Tachikoma.jl — A terminal UI framework for Julia

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