dcli 0.2.0-rc.4

dcli

dcli is a C#/.NET (net10.0) inline terminal-rendering library. Styled output flows into the terminal's native scrollback — not an alternate screen — while a small interactive region (input editor, status bar, and dropdown overlays) stays pinned at the bottom. The design is modelled on the rendering style used by Claude Code and similar AI-driven CLI tools.

dcli is a mechanics-and-rendering library. It owns the raw-mode session, the render loop, and the widget layer. The calling application owns data, semantics, and any application protocol.

Requirements

• .NET 10.0 or later
• A modern VT-capable terminal:
  • macOS: Terminal.app, iTerm2, Ghostty
  • Windows: Windows Terminal (legacy conhost.exe is not supported)
  • Linux: xterm, xterm-256color, or any xterm-class terminal emulator
• The process must be attached to a real tty (not redirected to a file or pipe)

Quick start

using Dcli;

// Enter raw mode and start the render loop.
await using Terminal t = await Terminal.StartAsync(new TerminalOptions());

// Append a styled line to the scrollback.
Line greeting = new LineBuilder()
    .Bold("dcli")
    .Text(" — inline terminal rendering")
    .Build();
t.Scrollback.Append(greeting);

// Set a status bar message.
t.Status.SetRows(new LineBuilder().Dim("Press Enter to continue…").Build());

// Ask the user to pick from a list (blocks until the user submits or cancels).
DialogResult<int> result = await t.SelectAsync(
    new SelectRequest(
        Items: ["Option A", "Option B", "Option C"]
            .Select(s => new LineBuilder().Text(s).Build())
            .ToList()),
    cancellationToken: default);

if (result.Outcome == DialogOutcome.Submitted)
{
    t.Scrollback.Append(new LineBuilder()
        .Text($"Selected index: {result.Value}")
        .Build());
}

// DisposeAsync stops the loop and restores the terminal.

Terminal restore is guaranteed on every exit path: normal disposal, unhandled exceptions, and OS signals (SIGTERM/SIGINT on POSIX, process-exit events on Windows).

Public surface

Entry point

Sub-surfaces (accessed via ITerminal)

Dialogs (methods on ITerminal)

All dialogs return DialogOutcome.Submitted on confirmation or DialogOutcome.Cancelled on Escape or cancellation-token cancellation.

Events

Drain ITerminal.Events (ChannelReader<TerminalEvent>) on a background task. Event types:

Styled-text primitives

Scrollback handle types

Input event types

Testing

The companion Dcli.Testing package ships a headless harness — HeadlessTerminal — that runs the full render engine, input parser, and fixed-region composer against in-memory OS edges, so you can drive and assert on terminal UIs without a real tty. See the testing guide.

Documentation

Full guides and a complete API reference live on GitHub: https://github.com/daemonicai/dcli#documentation

License

Mozilla Public License 2.0