Yes, readline requires pressing ENTER. I see the linked answer from the marked solution post using the built-into-Julia REPL.TerminalMenus.terminal doesn’t. It’s great that this is possible, and I confirmed on Linux; and when I think about it, e.g. for Julia’s REPL it must respond somehow, it e.g. echos q to the screen. I’m actually not sure how it’s implemented, for terminals (by it not Julia?), or e.g console windows in Windows. Possibly you can monitor the q, but not prevent it from appearing in the window (unlike what you would want for games). The security issue probably doesn’t apply when echoed to the screen (nor for full-screen), or otherwise it would contradict my other answer. I would like to know if there are some security or portability issues with that solution. At least I see there’s a potential issue with the undocumented REPL.Terminals.raw! function, and the possibility of error("unable to switch to raw mode") .