textualize/textual

Textual is a Python framework for building full-featured applications that run inside a terminal window, the text-based command-line interface you get when you open a shell or command prompt. The problem it solves is that writing polished, interactive terminal interfaces in Python is historically difficult and requires low-level handling of cursor positions and keyboard events. Textual provides a higher-level API with ready-made widgets like buttons, data tables, text inputs, tree views, and more, letting developers build complex interfaces with far less effort. Textual borrows concepts from web development: interfaces are composed of components (similar to how web UIs are built from HTML elements), and styling is done with a CSS-like syntax. This makes the model familiar to developers who have built web apps. The framework is asynchronous under the hood, meaning it can handle multiple tasks at once without blocking the interface, but you can use it without worrying about async programming if you do not need that feature. A notable capability is that the same application can run either in a terminal or in a web browser. Using the textual serve command, a Textual app becomes accessible over the network, which means you can share a terminal tool via a URL without the user needing to install anything. The project also includes developer tooling: a separate dev console connects to a running app from another terminal window and shows log output for debugging. Someone building an internal dashboard, a configuration tool, a monitoring interface, or any interactive program that needs to run in a terminal would use Textual. The tech stack is pure Python, compatible with macOS, Linux, and Windows, installed via pip.