Glossary

BaseRenderer

BaseRenderer is the abstract base class that all TUI Forms renderer backends extend. It provides the complete rendering pipeline—question ordering, condition evaluation, and hidden-field resolution—while delegating I/O to the five abstract methods (_ask_string, _ask_boolean, _ask_choice, _ask_multiple, _validation_error) that each concrete renderer implements.

CLI

Command-Line Interface. A program that accepts input and produces output entirely through text in a terminal, without a graphical interface.

Cookiecutter

Cookiecutter is a Python tool for generating projects from templates. Templates are driven by a cookiecutter.json file that lists the variables a user must supply. TUI Forms includes a cookiecutter renderer that mimics the Cookiecutter prompt style, and the root_key parameter can be used to produce an output dict that matches the shape Cookiecutter expects.

Diátaxis

Diátaxis is a documentation framework that organises content into four distinct types: tutorials, how-to guides, reference, and explanation. The TUI Forms documentation follows this structure.

entry point

A Python packaging mechanism that lets an installed package advertise named objects to other packages without requiring a direct import dependency. Entry points are declared in pyproject.toml under [project.entry-points."group"] and discovered at runtime using importlib.metadata. TUI Forms uses the tui_forms.renderers entry-point group so that renderer backends—including third-party ones—can be discovered automatically by name.

Jinja2

Jinja2 is a fast and expressive template engine for Python. TUI Forms uses Jinja2 to render default values at runtime, allowing defaults to reference answers that the user has already provided.

JSON Schema

JSONSchema

JSON Schema is a declarative language for annotating and validating JSON documents' structure, constraints, and data types. It helps you standardize and define expectations for JSON data. TUI Forms uses JSONSchema as its form definition format.

Markedly Structured Text

MyST

Markedly Structured Text (MyST) is an extension of CommonMark Markdown that adds support for Sphinx directives and roles. The TUI Forms documentation is written in MyST.

react-jsonschema-form

rjsf

react-jsonschema-form is a React library that renders web forms automatically from a JSONSchema definition. TUI Forms is inspired by the same schema-first philosophy, applied to terminal user interfaces instead of the web.

Rich

Rich is a Python library for rendering styled text, panels, tables, and other rich output in the terminal using ANSI escape codes. TUI Forms uses Rich in the rich and cookiecutter renderer backends to display coloured and formatted prompts. Install it with the rich optional extra: pip install "tui-forms[rich]".

TUI

Text User Interface.

TUI

Terminal User Interface. An interactive application that runs inside a terminal and uses text, colour, and layout to present a richer experience than a plain CLI.

TUI Forms

tui-forms

TUI Forms is a Python library for building interactive, schema-driven form wizards in terminal user interfaces (TUI). Define your form once using JSONSchema: validation rules, field types, defaults, and all—and TUI Forms handles the rest, rendering a guided step-by-step wizard with full user input handling.