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A pure-Elixir TUI framework for Unix terminals. TEA-style model / update / view loop on top of OTP, with first-class focus traversal, layout constraints, ANSI cell-diff rendering, and a thin termios NIF for direct /dev/tty control.

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# Harlock Roadmap
A pure-Elixir TUI framework for Unix terminals. TEA-style model/update/view
loop on top of OTP, with a thin termios NIF for direct /dev/tty control.
This roadmap is the working plan through v1.0 (stable API). It's a living
document — revised as the design settles. v0.7.0 is current and published
on Hex.
## Status snapshot (v0.7.0, current)
What works:
- OTP supervision tree (`Keeper → Writer → Reader → Runtime`, `rest_for_one`,
`max_restarts: 0`). Terminal is restored on any crash via
`Keeper.terminate/2`. This is correct and load-bearing — don't regress it.
- TEA loop with `init/1`, `update/2`, `view/1`, optional `subs/1`. Dirty-flag
rendering, no periodic polling.
- `Cmd` executor for supervised side effects: `Cmd.from/1`, `Cmd.batch/1`,
`Cmd.map/2`. Results arrive back through `update/2` as messages.
- Focus traversal (`Tab` / `Shift-Tab`), focus traps for modals with
automatic stash/restore on open/close.
- Focus-aware key routing (v0.4): the runtime dispatches navigation keys
straight to the focused `viewport` / `tabs` / `text_input` / `textarea` /
`menu` / `select` / `tree` and delivers the result as a message, so apps no
longer hand-wire `apply_key` helpers. `box(focus_proxy:)` lets a container
mirror a child's focus for styling without joining traversal.
- Push-shaped subscriptions: `Sub.telemetry` and `Sub.logger` turn `:telemetry`
events and log calls into `update/2` messages, `Sub.source` subscribes to
anything that sends to its subscriber (Phoenix.PubSub, registries, `:global`
groups), plus `sparkline` for trends.
- `table` takes a `fn offset, limit -> rows` window function as well as an
enumerable, so a query- or stream-backed table is asked only for what fits.
- `Harlock.Bench` measures render and diff cost over five scenarios, reporting
percentiles. Layout solver covered by property tests as well as examples.
- Constraint layout solver: `:length`, `:percentage`, `:fill`, `:min`, `:max`.
Deterministic round-off absorption; graceful truncation on over-constraint
(logs warning, never crashes).
- Cell-grid renderer with frame diffing. ANSI output via `Writer`.
- Theming (v0.4): full token set (`:header`, `:focus`, `:selection`,
`:border`, `:primary`, `:accent`, `:muted`, `:error`), three built-in themes
(`:default` / `:dark` / `:high_contrast`), caps-aware colour downgrade
(truecolor → 256 → 16 → mono), and a table style cascade. `:default`-theme
output is pinned byte-for-byte against v0.3.0 by a golden-frame test.
- Primitives: `text`, `vbox`, `hbox`, `spacer`, `box` (4 border styles +
title + padding), `overlay` (5 anchors + focus trap), `table` / `list`
(row-id identity, single/multi selection, header), `text_input`, `textarea`
(multi-line, opt-in word wrap), `viewport`
(render-then-clip + scroll-into-view + cursor remap), `progress`, `spinner`,
`statusbar`, `keybar`, `tabs`, `menu`, `select` (dropdown that flips rather
than clipping near a margin), `tree` (flat projection, id-keyed expansion,
lazily loaded children).
- Undo / redo via `Harlock.UndoStack` — bounded snapshots the app holds in its
model, with coalescing that breaks on a newline, a cursor jump, or a delete
after an insert.
- Wide-grapheme width (CJK, emoji, ZWJ sequences, flags).
- SIGWINCH resize via an `ioctl(TIOCGWINSZ)` NIF — terminal resize reflows.
- Input parser handles CSI/SS3, bracketed paste, XTerm focus reporting,
modified arrows (`CSI 1;5A`), Home / End, and F-keys.
- `:telemetry` events for frame render, input dispatch, cmd, and reader.
- Headless `IO.Test` backend selectable via `backend: :test` for
deterministic tests without a TTY, plus the `Harlock.Test` helper API.
- Examples: `counter`, `sysmon`, `contacts`, `showcase`, `overview`, `notes`,
`explorer`, `dashboard`. Smoke
tests driven by `script(1)` (handles BSD vs util-linux flag differences).
- Packaging and quality gates: Hex package metadata, published hexdocs, CI,
Dialyzer, and Credo all wired in.
What's stubbed / missing — the honest list:
- `Sub`: `:interval`, `:telemetry`, `:logger` and the generic `:source` exist.
`file` and `port` are v0.8 — the seam is built, so they are additions rather
than design work. `pubsub` is not coming: `source/3` covers it.
- No windowed aggregation for metrics (rates, percentiles over a trailing
window) — v0.8. Counts and means are a few lines of `Enum` in the model.
- Mouse events: SGR parser only — runtime enabling is deferred.
- Kitty keyboard protocol: parser only — runtime push is deferred.
- No mouse-driven interaction; `table` has no auto-routing, so a windowed table
scrolls by app-handled keys writing `:offset`, as `viewport` did pre-R2.
- Windows native is unsupported (WSL works); the termios NIF targets POSIX.
## Guiding principles
1. **OTP-first.** The supervision tree is the architecture. New features
that need processes get their own child, supervised correctly.
2. **No NIFs in the rendering path.** ANSI in, ANSI out. The termios NIF
shipped in v0.2 is the one allowed exception, strictly scoped to
/dev/tty control; new NIFs require the same level of justification.
3. **Phoenix devs feel at home.** `update/view/subs` mirrors LiveView's
mental model on purpose, and subscribing to a `Phoenix.PubSub` topic is a
one-liner — via `Sub.source/3` rather than a named `Sub.pubsub`, because
principle 7 says the dependency belongs in the app rather than here.
4. **Headless-testable.** Every new widget gets `IO.Test`-driven coverage.
No "works on my terminal" features.
5. **Terminal restoration is sacred.** Any new IO path must survive crashes
without leaving the terminal in raw mode / alt-screen. Test it.
6. **Honest stubs over fake completeness.** Stub modules clearly say so in
their moduledoc. No silent half-features.
7. **Seams, not adapters.** Harlock provides the shape an integration plugs
into and stops there. `table` takes a window function, not an
`Ecto.Queryable`; `Sub.telemetry` takes event names, not an Oban
dashboard. A terminal UI library should not acquire a dependency on a
database, a web framework, or a job runner in order to display their
output — the adapter is a few lines of app code, or its own package if it
ever earns one. `:telemetry` is the sole first-party integration, and only
because it is already a dependency and its seam is generic.
## Versioning
- **0.x** — API may break. We document breaking changes in CHANGELOG.
- **1.0** — locked public API for `Harlock`, `Harlock.App`, `Harlock.Elements`,
`Harlock.Cmd`, `Harlock.Sub`, `Harlock.Render.Style`, `Harlock.Layout`.
Internal modules — Harlock.App.Runtime, the rest of Harlock.Terminal.\*,
Harlock.Element.Renderer — stay `@moduledoc false` and remain free
to change without notice.
---
## v0.2-prep — tooling first (do before any v0.2 implementation)
CI gates the v0.2 implementation work; it does not land alongside it.
Otherwise the Cmd executor, SIGWINCH path, and text_input land without
type-checking or lint to catch regressions, and the first green build is
also the first build that has to satisfy every new check at once.
- Add dev deps: `:ex_doc`, `:dialyxir`, `:credo`. Wire `mix docs`.
- `.github/workflows/ci.yml`: `mix format --check-formatted`, `mix test`,
`mix dialyzer`, `mix credo --strict` on push + PR.
- `.credo.exs` tuned to a green baseline on v0.1 code.
- Dialyzer PLT cached in CI; baseline clean on v0.1 before opening v0.2 PRs.
- `CHANGELOG.md` seeded from v0.1.
---
## v0.2 — "actually usable" (~2 weeks)
The minimum set that lets someone build a real internal tool. Ship together.
### Cmd executor (the unblocker)
The runtime currently destructures `{model, _cmd}` and throws the cmd away.
Wire a real executor.
- Add a Task.Supervisor child to the app supervisor, positioned
**between IO and Runtime** so it's already up when Runtime's
`handle_continue` dispatches the init-time cmd. (Earlier plan said
"after Runtime"; that lost the init-cmd race against the supervisor's
child-start loop.) Strategy: `:one_for_one`, restart `:temporary` on
individual tasks.
- Implement `Cmd.from/1`: runs the 0-arity fn under `Task.Supervisor`,
sends result back as `{:harlock_event, result}`.
- Implement `Cmd.batch/1`: spawns each child cmd concurrently, no
ordering guarantees.
- Add `Cmd.map/2` for tagging results: `Cmd.map(cmd, fn r -> {:tag, r} end)`.
- Tasks linked to runtime; if runtime exits, tasks die. If a task crashes,
log + emit `{:harlock_event, {:cmd_error, reason}}` (don't kill runtime).
- Runtime: on `update/2` returning `{model, cmd}`, dispatch cmd, update
model, render. On `:quit` with cmd, dispatch then quit.
Tests: cmd that sleeps then returns; cmd that crashes; batch of three;
quit-with-cmd ordering.
### SIGWINCH + resize event
Terminal resize must reflow. Without this we can't ship.
- Use `:os.set_signal(:sigwinch, :handle)` (OTP 22+) in `Keeper` (the
TTY-owning process). Signal arrives as `{:signal, :sigwinch}` in
Keeper's mailbox.
- Keeper queries new size via `ioctl(TIOCGWINSZ)` through the termios
NIF (`Harlock.Terminal.Termios.winsize/1`). The original plan
considered `tput cols`/`tput lines` to avoid native code, but
`:os.cmd`-based shell-outs lose the controlling tty (every shell
spawned by ERTS is `setsid()`-detached), so a NIF was needed for
termios anyway — TIOCGWINSZ goes through the same one.
- Keeper sends `{:harlock_resize, rows, cols}` to Runtime.
- Runtime handles `{:harlock_resize, _, _}`: update `state.rows` /
`state.cols`, discard `prev_frame` (full redraw — diff against
differently-sized buffer is meaningless), mark dirty, render.
- Initial size at Runtime startup also comes from `Keeper.size/1`
(synchronous `GenServer.call`, no race because Keeper starts first
in the supervision tree). Test backend supplies explicit rows/cols
via opts.
Tests: simulate resize event into `IO.Test` runtime, assert reflow
(`test/harlock/resize_test.exs`).
### Wide-grapheme width (prerequisite for text_input)
`String.length` ≠ display columns. Pulled into v0.2 from v0.3 because
text_input cursor math depends on it — shipping text_input first would
either land with broken CJK/emoji handling or force a width retrofit later.
Verified usage at `renderer.ex:188, 194, 200, 308, 315–325` and called out
in code at `renderer.ex:323-324` and `cell.ex:7-8`.
- New module `Harlock.Width`: `width(grapheme)` returns 0/1/2 based on
Unicode East Asian Width + emoji presentation. Static table — pull from
Unicode 15.1 EastAsianWidth.txt at build time via `mix harlock.gen_width`.
- Replace `String.length` with `Harlock.Width.string_width/1` in:
`clip/2`, `align_text/3`, `draw_title/6`, table column rendering,
and the new `text_input` cursor math.
- Zero-width joiner / variation selectors: keep with the preceding
grapheme, don't advance the cursor.
- `Cell` stays one codepoint per cell; wide graphemes occupy `cell + cell'`
where `cell'` is a sentinel "continuation" cell. Frame diffing and clip
math must skip continuations.
Tests: "héllo" (combining), "東京" (wide), "🇮🇹" (regional indicator pair),
"👨‍👩‍👧" (ZWJ sequence).
### Minimal theme tokens (prerequisite for v0.3 widgets)
Replace the hard-coded styles in the renderer with theme lookups now, so
v0.3 widgets (`progress`, `tabs`, `statusbar`, `keybar`) aren't built
against hard-coded values that need a sweep in v0.4. Full theming
ergonomics still land in v0.4 — this is the minimum surface to avoid
rework.
- `Harlock.Theme` struct with the four tokens the current renderer needs:
`header`, `focus`, `selection`, `border`. Full token set (`primary`,
`accent`, `muted`, `error`) deferred to v0.4.
- `Harlock.Theme.get(token)` available in callbacks via process dict
(same pattern as `Focus`).
- App passes `theme: %Theme{...}` to `Harlock.run/3`; omitted = built-in
default that matches today's hard-coded values exactly (no v0.1 → v0.2
visual diff for existing apps).
- Replace hard-coded styles at `renderer.ex:165` (`%Style{bold: true}`
header), `:211-212` (`%Style{reverse: true}` / `bold: true` focused row),
`:254` (focus default), `:214, 217` (`bg: :cyan` selection) with theme
lookups.
Tests: app with custom theme overrides each token; app with no theme
renders byte-identical to v0.1 baseline (golden frame).
### text_input element
Single-line first. The cursor is a new concept — `Frame` needs to track it.
- Add `cursor: {row, col} | nil` to `Frame`. `Writer` emits cursor-show /
cursor-position after diff, or cursor-hide if nil.
- `text_input` element opts: `:value` (caller-owned, model holds state),
`:placeholder`, `:focusable` (required), `:on_change` (msg to send),
`:max_length`, `:style`, `:placeholder_style`, `:password` (mask with `•`).
- Runtime injects key events to the focused `text_input`'s `:on_change`
with shape `{msg, {:input_event, kind, payload}}` where kind is
`:insert | :delete | :move | :submit`. App owns the buffer.
- Helper module `Harlock.TextBuffer` (pure functions: `insert/3`,
`delete_backward/2`, `move_cursor/2`, etc.). App calls it from `update/2`.
Keeps the element dumb, model honest.
- Keys: printable chars insert, `Backspace` deletes-back, `Delete`
deletes-forward, `Left`/`Right` move, `Home`/`End` jump, `Enter` submits.
Defer to v0.3: multi-line, IME, word movement (`Ctrl-Left`/`Ctrl-Right`),
selection.
### viewport element
Generic scrollable container.
- `viewport(child: el, height: n, offset: model.offset, on_scroll: msg)`.
- Renders child into a virtual `Frame` of `{requested_w, large_h}`, then
blits the visible slice into the real region.
- Emits scroll messages on `PgUp`/`PgDn`/`Up`/`Down` when focused.
- App owns the offset (same TEA discipline as text_input).
### Presentation track (parallel with v0.2 implementation)
Tooling itself ships in v0.2-prep (above). What's left here is the
external-facing surface that gates adoption:
- Fill `mix.exs`: `description`, `package` (licenses, links, maintainers),
`source_url`, `homepage_url`, `docs` config (main: "readme", extras).
- Replace `README.md`: 30-second pitch, screenshot/GIF, install snippet,
minimum counter example, status table linking to ROADMAP, "why not X"
(vs Owl, Ratatouille, ratatui-via-port).
- Asciinema cast of `sysmon` embedded in README.
---
## v0.3 — "shows well in demos" (~3 weeks after v0.2)
### Layout: real :min and :max ✓
Shipped. The solver:
1. Computes a lower bound per slot: `:length(n)→n`, `:percentage(p)→p%`,
`:min(n)→n`, `:fill(_)→0`, `:max(_)→0`.
2. If lower bounds exceed total → truncate from tail and warn (unchanged
over-constraint behavior).
3. Distributes the remainder across flexible slots. `:fill(weight)`
carries its weight; `:min` and `:max` each carry weight 1.
4. Clamps `:max` violators to their cap, returns excess to remaining,
iterates. Convergence is bounded by `length(constraints)` — each
pass either freezes ≥1 slot or terminates.
5. If `:max` caps leave space unallocated (`[max: 10, max: 10]` in a
30-cell region), the trailing region is simply not used — children
don't overflow caps to fill space.
### Standard widgets ✓
Shipped — all composable from existing primitives, dumb renderers with
app-owned state:
- `progress(:value, :max, :width, :style, :fill_style)` — single-line
bar with `█` for the filled portion.
- `spinner(:tick, :frames, :style)` — single cell. Caller increments
`:tick` from a `Sub.interval` subscription.
- `tabs(:items, :active, :focusable, :style, :active_style)`
horizontal tab bar; the body for the active tab is rendered
separately by the app. Pair with `Harlock.Tabs.apply_key/3` in
`update/2` for Left/Right/Home/End navigation.
- `statusbar(:left, :right, :style)` — pinned-row helper, left/right
alignment with style-filled middle.
- `keybar(:bindings, :style, :separator, :right)` — formats
`[?q, "quit"]``[q] quit`, with arbitrary separators and an
optional right-aligned addendum.
### Viewport element ✓
Shipped. App-owned scroll state, render-then-clip pipeline:
- `viewport(child:, offset:, content_height:, scrollbar:)` — required
`:offset` and `:content_height` (app knows what it's scrolling).
- Renderer allocates a `width × content_height` temporary frame,
renders the child into it, blits the visible slice. Cost is
O(content × width) per frame — fine for hundreds of rows. Day-one
perf test (`viewport_perf_test.exs`) holds the budget.
- Scroll-into-view is a render-pipeline phase: focusable elements
record their bounds via `Frame.set_focus_rect/2`; the viewport
reads its child's `tall_frame.focus_rect` and snaps the effective
offset so the focused element stays visible. Model offset is
untouched — this is render-time-only adjustment.
- Cursor positions (set by `text_input`) are remapped from
tall-frame coords to dst coords when the cursor falls in the
visible window; hidden otherwise.
- Optional cosmetic scrollbar: single column on the right edge,
thumb proportional to `visible_h / content_h`.
- `Harlock.Viewport.apply_key/4` translates scroll keys
(`:up | :down | :page_up | :page_down | :home | :end`) into a
new clamped offset. Scroll keys are explicit — app calls the
helper from `update/2`, no runtime interception.
### Mouse events (parser) ✓
Parser landed. Emits
`{:mouse, action, button | nil, col, row, mods}` for SGR encoding
(`CSI < button;col;row M|m`). Actions: `:press | :release | :drag |
:move | :wheel_up | :wheel_down`. Buttons: `:left | :middle | :right |
:extra4 | :extra5`.
**Runtime enabling + hit-test routing — deferred.** The runtime does
not write `\e[?1006h` by default and does not route events to elements.
Apps that need mouse input can write the enable sequence themselves and
match on raw `(col, row)` in `update/2`. Hit-test infra (frames carry
element bounds, runtime resolves cursor → element) waits on a real use
case shaping the API.
### Modified arrows ✓
`CSI 1;<mod><letter>` for arrows + Home/End with shift/alt/ctrl/meta.
`CSI <n>;<mod>~` for modified PageUp/PageDown/Insert/Delete and F1-F12.
### Kitty keyboard protocol (parser) ✓
Parser landed:
- Detection response `CSI ? <flags> u``{:capability,
:kitty_keyboard, flags}`.
- Key events `CSI <code>[:<shifted>:<base>][;<mod>[:<type>]] u`.
Event-type 1=press → `{:key, ...}`, 2=repeat → `{:key_repeat, ...}`,
3=release → `{:key_release, ...}`. Kitty private-range codepoints
(57344-57375) map to functional-key atoms.
Enabling the protocol (writing `CSI > <flags> u` to push state) is a
runtime decision deferred until a real use case appears.
### Telemetry instrumentation ✓
Shipped. Events:
- `[:harlock, :frame, :render, :start | :stop | :exception]` — span
wrapping `view/1` + tree walk + diff emission. Stop measurements
include duration; metadata includes app, dirty, rows, cols.
- `[:harlock, :input, :dispatch, :start | :stop | :exception]` — span
wrapping the runtime mailbox → `update/2` return path. Metadata
includes app, event, focused.
- `[:harlock, :cmd, :dispatch]` — one-shot when a cmd is handed to the
task supervisor. Metadata: `%{kind: :fun | :batch | :map | :none}`.
- `[:harlock, :cmd, :complete]` — when a cmd task returns. Measurements:
`%{duration: native}`. Metadata: `%{status: :ok | :error}`.
- `[:harlock, :reader, :tty_lost]` — one-shot on EOF (ssh disconnect,
terminal close).
`Harlock.Telemetry` documents the full catalog. `:telemetry` is a
hard dep (tiny library, no transitive deps).
---
## v0.4 — "absorb the boilerplate" ✓ (shipped 2026-05-18)
The v0.4 plan was re-scoped against [`docs/feedback-v0.3.md`](https://github.com/thatsme/harlock/blob/main/docs/feedback-v0.3.md)
and [`docs/v0.4-plan.md`](https://github.com/thatsme/harlock/blob/main/docs/v0.4-plan.md): instead of growing the widget
roster, v0.4 made the widgets that already shipped cost less to wire.
The original "polish & adoption" sub-sections below are kept as-is for
provenance — entries marked ✓ landed, others moved to v0.5.
### Focus-aware widget key routing (R2) ✓
The headline. Focusable `viewport`, `tabs`, and `text_input` elements
get their navigation keys auto-routed by the runtime; the app's
`update/2` receives a synthesised `{:harlock_scroll | _select | _edit
| _submit, focus_id, payload}` instead of raw `{:key, …}`. Opt out
per-element with `handle_keys: false`. The four routed-message tuples
are public API and documented in `Harlock.App`'s moduledoc.
Applied to `examples/showcase.exs`: the per-field text-input dispatch
clause in `update/2` went 21→7 lines (-67%); the manual
`Viewport.apply_key/4` scroll dispatch went 7→3 lines. No widget calls
`apply_key/_` from `update/2` in showcase any more.
### End-to-end README example ✓
`examples/overview.exs` (also embedded inline in the README between
the Counter snippet and Installation) is a runnable ~70-line app
covering focus traversal, a selectable table, a focusable viewport
with R2 auto-routing, and a `Cmd` round-trip.
`test/examples/overview_test.exs` `Code.require_file`s it so the
README snippet can't rot silently.
### Theming (full token set) ✓
The four-token minimum (`header`, `focus`, `selection`, `border`) landed
in v0.2. v0.4 extends to the full palette and ships the ergonomics around
it:
```elixir
%Theme{
primary: :cyan,
accent: :magenta,
muted: %Style{fg: {:rgb, 128, 128, 128}},
error: :red,
border: %Style{fg: :white},
focus: %Style{reverse: true},
header: %Style{bold: true},
selection: %Style{bg: :cyan}
}
```
- Add the remaining tokens (`primary`, `accent`, `muted`, `error`) and
any per-widget tokens surfaced during v0.3 widget work.
- Built-in themes: `:default`, `:dark`, `:high_contrast`.
- Auto-downgrade truecolor → 256 → 16 based on `Caps`.
- App still configures via `Harlock.run(MyApp, init_arg, theme: theme)`;
`Harlock.Theme.get/1` already exists from v0.2.
### Style cascade ✓
- `box` propagates `:border_style` to title. ✓ (was already true in
v0.3 — `draw_title` shares the border style parameter; verified
during Phase 3.)
- `table` accepts `:header_style`, `:row_style`, `:alt_row_style`,
`:selected_style`, `:focus_style` (all default to theme). ✓
`:alt_row_style` is the only behavioural addition; the rest are
pure overrides that preserve v0.3 output when unset.
- `Style.merge/2` with proper inheritance (child overrides parent;
unspecified attrs inherit). ✓ (already had these semantics in v0.2;
verified during Phase 3.)
### `:default` byte-identical to v0.3 ✓
Pinned in `test/harlock/golden_frame_test.exs`. Hash captured by
running the same canonical app under a git worktree at tag `v0.3.0`,
not by observing the v0.4 implementation — so the test proves parity,
not self-locking.
---
## v0.5 — widgets on the new contract ✓ (shipped as v0.5.0)
The work originally listed under v0.4 that was deferred so it could
ship as the **first consumer of the R2 routing contract** instead of
being built against the v0.3 manual-dispatch idiom. Building them
inside v0.4 would have meant writing their key handling against the
old API and rewriting it the moment R2 landed; v0.5 lets them
arrive as native R2 widgets from day one.
That reason is now spent: R2 shipped in v0.4, and `textarea` proved the
contract on the hardest case in v0.4.2–v0.4.3. What remains is a closed
list — `menu`, `select`, `tree`, and the undo helper — and the milestone
closes when those are done. Subscriptions and `box(focus_proxy:)` moved to
v0.6 to keep that boundary meaningful; a widget set has no natural end
otherwise, and this one needs one.
Build order is `menu``select``tree`: `menu` is the smallest R2
consumer and establishes the pattern, `select` adds the `overlay` open
state on top, and `tree` comes last because it is the only recursive one
and the only one adding a routed tuple to the public contract.
### tree / menu / select widgets
- `tree(:nodes, :expanded, :focused, :on_toggle, :on_select)`
recursive node display with expand/collapse on `Right`/`Left` or
`Enter`. Auto-routed via `{:harlock_select, focus_id, node_id}` and
a new `{:harlock_toggle, focus_id, node_id}`.
- `menu(:items, :on_select)` — vertical list, arrow navigation,
`Enter` selects. Auto-routed via `{:harlock_select, focus_id, id}`.
- `select(:items, :value, :on_change)` — dropdown (uses `overlay` for
the open state). Same routed-select shape.
Each gets its own `apply_key/n` pure helper plus a per-type clause in
the runtime's `route_to_widget/4`; no new mechanism, just three
new consumers.
All three shipped. Two things the plan above did not anticipate, both
worth keeping:
**`select` needed a deferred-draw layer.** `overlay/1` establishes z-order
by holding both layers as children, which a dropdown cannot do — it is
anchored to a control buried in the layout, and every sibling drawn after
that control would bury the panel. So the renderer records floats during
the walk and draws them after it, in push order. That ordering is also the
stack nested panels would need, without anything tracking depth. Placement
flips rather than clips: above the control near the bottom margin,
shifted left near the right one.
**`tree` keeps the tree as data.** `Harlock.Tree.visible/2` projects to the
flat list of visible rows and the renderer draws rows, never recursing.
Rows carry `ancestors_last` — the last-child flag of every ancestor — not
just a depth, because the guides need to know whether each ancestor column
wants a continuation bar or a blank, and only the projection can see
siblings. Expansion is keyed by node id; index keys would move the
selection whenever a node above collapsed.
Lazy children are the interesting part: `:children` is a list or one of
`:unloaded` / `:loading`, so expanding a node over a filesystem or a remote
node is a side effect. The app receives `{:harlock_toggle, …}`, marks the
node loading, returns a `Cmd`, and swaps the result in when it arrives —
which is the clearest demonstration in the widget set of why the model is
not ceremony.
`{:harlock_toggle, focus_id, node_id}` is the only routed message the whole
set added. `menu` and `select` reuse `{:harlock_select, …}` and
`{:harlock_submit, …}`.
### Multi-line text_area ✓ (shipped in v0.4.2)
Shipped as `textarea/1` + `Harlock.TextArea`. Hard and soft line breaks,
vertical motion, display-row Home / End, logical-line kills, and Enter
inserting a newline rather than submitting. Horizontal editing delegates to
`Harlock.TextBuffer`, so both widgets share one key-binding set.
Word wrap is opt-in per element (`wrap: true`) and breaks at word
boundaries, measuring display cells so CJK wraps where it actually reaches
the edge. When wrapping, `↑` / `↓` and Home / End follow display rows;
kills stay logical-line relative, because a wrap boundary isn't in the text.
One deviation from the plan above, deliberate: **the cursor stayed a flat
grapheme index** rather than widening to `{line, col}`. Cross-line motion
then falls out for free — moving left from a line start lands on the
newline ending the previous line, and deleting there joins them — and the
routed-edit message is byte-identical to the one `text_input` produces, so
apps write one clause for both. The visual-vs-logical distinction the plan
anticipated lives in `visual_rows/2` instead of in the cursor type, which
keeps it out of the public message contract.
Goal-column memory landed in v0.4.3. The column is held in runtime state,
keyed by focus and discarded on focus change, so it stays out of the routed
message contract — `apply_key/6` threads it, and vertical motion is the only
thing that pays for computing it.
### Undo / redo as an app-held helper ✓
A textarea without undo is the gap users hit first, and more sharply than in a
single-line input where retyping is cheap. It cannot live in the widget: the
app model owns `:value` and may rewrite it — loading a file, clearing a form,
applying a `Cmd` result — without the widget seeing it, so a buffer-held
history desyncs and starts restoring text the user never typed.
So it ships as a pure helper the app holds in its model and threads
explicitly: bounded snapshots of `{cursor, text}` with coalescing, ring-capped
around 100 entries. Snapshots rather than a command stack — for a buffer this
size they are simpler and fast enough.
Coalescing is the part that has to be right, and it is contract, not
implementation detail. A run of insertions collapses into one step, and the run
**breaks** on a newline, on any cursor jump, and on a delete following an
insert. Get it wrong and a user types a paragraph, presses undo expecting to
lose a word, and loses the paragraph — worse than shipping no undo at all,
because it destroys work rather than merely failing to restore it.
Shipped as `Harlock.UndoStack`, with those three break conditions written into
its moduledoc as contract rather than left as tuning. A cursor jump closes the
run without becoming a step of its own: restoring a caret position while
leaving the text alone would spend an undo press on nothing the user thinks of
as a change. `examples/notes.exs` wires it to `Ctrl-Z` / `Ctrl-R`.
---
## v0.6 — the event-source seam (next)
Split out of v0.5 so that milestone could close on the widget set alone.
Nothing here is a widget, and holding `tree` / `menu` / `select` back until
`Phoenix.PubSub` integration was also done would have left finished work
unpublished for no reason.
`Sub` currently has one kind, `:interval`, which is a *timer* — the runtime
wakes itself up. Everything else worth subscribing to is the opposite shape:
an **external source pushes**, and the runtime has to receive without the
source knowing anything about rendering. That is one seam, and the milestone
is organised around building it once rather than five times.
The ordering below is deliberate. `Sub.telemetry` and `Sub.logger` come first
not because they are the most requested but because they are the same seam
with two genuinely different consumers, which is the only way to find out
whether the abstraction holds before four more callers depend on it.
### Sub.telemetry — the integration that pays for the seam
`:telemetry` is how the entire serious Elixir ecosystem already reports on
itself: Phoenix, Ecto, Oban, Broadway, Finch, Bandit. Integrate with that one
thing and a Harlock app gets an ops UI for all of them. Attaching
`[:ecto, :repo, :query]` and `[:oban, :job, :stop]` should be a working
dashboard in about twenty lines.
Sub.telemetry([:ecto, :repo, :query], &{:query, &1.query_time})
Three constraints that shape the design rather than decorate it:
- **Handlers execute in the emitting process.** The handler must do the
minimum — build a message and send it — or it slows down the very system it
is measuring. All aggregation happens on the runtime side.
- **Handlers are global.** They must detach when the app stops, or a restarted
app leaks a handler that sends to a dead pid.
- **Attach a named module function, not a closure.** `:telemetry` warns about
anonymous handlers for real performance reasons; Harlock's own test suite
prints that warning today, which is the mistake to avoid making publicly.
Needs a **windowed aggregator** — counts, rates, and percentiles over a
trailing window — because raw events are useless in a table and something has
to hold that state between frames.
### Sub.logger — the same seam, proving it generalises
A `:logger` handler that forwards log events into `update/2`, giving a log
viewer with level filtering and metadata search. Small, and it is the demo
that needs no explanation.
It exists in this milestone mainly as the second consumer. If the seam built
for telemetry also carries logging without special-casing, it will carry
`pubsub` and `port` too. If it does not, better to learn that here than after
the fourth caller.
Same detach-on-shutdown requirement, same do-not-block rule: a handler that
blocks slows every log call in the system.
### sparkline ✓
A one-line trend widget, because a numeric column is not a dashboard and a
`progress` bar shows a fraction rather than a history. Takes a list of numbers
and draws them with block glyphs, auto-scaled. Needed by the telemetry work
above rather than desirable alongside it.
Shipped with the glyph ramp as an explicit `:glyphs` option rather than
switching on capabilities: the internal caps struct tracks colour depth,
bracketed paste, mouse and kitty, and has no notion of glyph coverage. Adding
one would mean guessing — a mono terminal renders block elements perfectly
well, so colour depth is not a proxy for it. Passing an ASCII ramp explicitly
is honest and follows `spinner`'s `:frames`.
### The remaining Sub kinds — moved to v0.7
v0.6.0 shipped without `pubsub`, `file`, `signal` and `port`. The milestone's
point was the seam, and the seam is done and proven against two deliberately
different consumers, so holding a finished release for four additions that need
no design work would have been holding it for nothing.
They are listed under v0.7 rather than becoming a v0.6.x series: each adds a
public function to `Harlock.Sub`, and additive-in-a-patch is the tension this
project already hit in v0.4.2. They sit alongside the hardening work rather than
displacing it — that work is what v1.0 waits on, and it should not keep sliding
to make room for small features.
### `box(focus_proxy: :child_id)`
Polish for the R2 visual story. With R2 default-on, `:focusable`
lives on the interactive widget (the viewport, the tabs, the text
input) — but the wrapping `box` is what users *see*. The
`focus_proxy:` opt lets a box mirror a named child's focus state for
visual highlighting only (border style, title style) without itself
participating in focus traversal.
Shipped in the shared focus-styling path rather than as a box special case, so
any element taking focus styling honours it. Not participating in traversal
needed no work: focusable collection keys on `:focusable`, so a proxy is
invisible to Tab by construction rather than by being filtered out afterwards.
`examples/overview.exs` has dropped the `border_style/1` helper it used as a
stand-in — a workaround referenced from its own comment, this section, and the
v0.4 R2 review.
---
## v0.7 — measurement, data access, and the generic seam ✓ (shipped as v0.7.0)
Not the milestone originally planned under this number. What shipped is the work
that turned out to be ready: a benchmark harness, the textarea speedup it
justified, windowed table rows, `Sub.source/3`, and property tests for the
layout solver.
Three of those five changed a plan rather than executing one. The benchmark
rescoped incremental rewrap *downwards*; measuring the table showed windowing was
never a rendering optimisation; and `Sub.source/3` deleted `Sub.pubsub` from the
roadmap instead of implementing it.
### Harlock.Bench ✓
### Textarea wrap memoisation ✓
### Windowed `table` rows ✓
### `Sub.source/3`
### Layout solver property tests ✓
---
## v0.8 — pre-1.0 hardening (next)
Everything below is what stands between here and a 1.0 API freeze. It is the
third time this work has been renumbered — v0.6, then v0.7, now v0.8 — because
each time something finishable arrived first. That is defensible individually
and a bad trend collectively, so this milestone gets nothing added to it: new
features go to v0.9 or later, and 1.0 waits on this list alone.
### The rest of the Sub kinds
Additive, and each follows the seam v0.6 established — a linked process owning
the registration, a handler that only builds and sends, detach on the way out.
No new design work, which is why they did not gate v0.6.0 or v0.7.0.
- ~~`Sub.pubsub(pubsub_mod, topic, transform_fn)`~~**dropped, not deferred.**
`Sub.source/3` covers it: Phoenix.PubSub delivers to whichever process called
`subscribe`, and `source/3` runs the caller's function inside the
subscription's own process for exactly that reason.
Sub.source({:pubsub, "orders"}, fn ->
Phoenix.PubSub.subscribe(MyApp.PubSub, "orders")
end)
A named constructor would have added a `phoenix_pubsub` dependency to a
terminal UI library in order to deliver messages the seam already receives —
the case principle 7 exists for. The same shape covers `:global` groups,
registries, `GenStage` consumers, and anything else that sends to its
subscriber.
- `Sub.file(path, opts)` — watch via `:fs` if available, polling fallback. Stays
first-party: the polling fallback and change-detection are real logic, not a
seam.
- `Sub.port(cmd, args)` — long-running external process, stdout lines as events.
Also stays: port lifecycle, partial-line buffering and exit handling are real
logic.
- `Sub.signal(:sigusr1, msg)`**blocked on a verification, not on effort.**
`Keeper`'s moduledoc claims `:os.set_signal(:sigwinch, :handle)` "routes
`{:signal, :sigwinch}` messages to the most recent caller". That is the
mechanism an app-level signal sub would build on, and it has not been checked
against OTP's actual delivery path — signals are documented as going to
`erl_signal_server`, which is global. Until someone confirms how Keeper really
receives them on a POSIX host, building a second signal consumer means
building on an unverified comment.
Their relative order should be decided by whichever real app needs one first,
not guessed here. That is the mistake the v0.6 list originally made:
`Sub.pubsub` led it because it was written first, not because anything needed
it — and it turned out not to be needed at all.
### Windowed aggregation for metrics
Rates and percentiles over a trailing window, for `Sub.telemetry` consumers.
Deliberately scoped *down* by `examples/dashboard.exs`: counts, mean, min and
max over a bounded list turned out to be three lines of `Enum` in the model,
with nothing worth abstracting. What a helper is actually for is the part that
needs time — per-second rates, and percentiles that cannot be computed
incrementally from a running total.
### Hardening
- **Dialyzer clean** at `:underspecs` + `:overspecs`. Strict specs on all
public functions.
- **Property-based tests** — done for the layout solver, twelve properties over
generated constraint lists: sizes non-negative, one rect per constraint, slots
contiguous and non-overlapping, cross axis untouched, `:max` never exceeded,
`:length` honoured with slack absorbed, `:fill` proportional to weights,
over-constraint truncating rather than crashing, zero regions yielding zero
slots, and determinism.
One of them was wrong before the solver was: "a split always consumes the whole
region" fails for `[{:max, 0}]`, because filling the space would violate the cap
the caller asked for. The solver is right and the invariant needed the
condition, which is the sort of correction generated input produces and example
tests do not.
Running at StreamData's default 100 runs per property. Worth raising if the
solver changes.
**The frame-diff half is not done, and needs a prerequisite.** "Replay produces
an equivalent frame" requires interpreting the ANSI the differ emits, and
nothing in the tree can do that — the test backend's writer captures a cell
buffer written *through* the renderer, not a terminal emulator that consumes
escape sequences. Either a minimal ANSI interpreter gets written for tests
only, or this property gets dropped as costing more than it proves. Deciding
which is the actual open item; it is not a matter of writing the property.
- **Benchmarks** ✓ — `Harlock.Bench` measures render and diff over five
canonical scenarios, reporting percentiles rather than a mean because a frame
budget is about the slow frames. Public rather than dev-only, so app authors
can measure their own views.
First baseline, 200×80, 100 samples, one dev machine — useful for comparison
against itself, not as an absolute:
| scenario | p50 | p99 |
|---|---|---|
| `text_rows` | 3 481µs | 4 403µs |
| `nested_boxes` | 8 499µs | 10 035µs |
| `table_rows` | 11 878µs | 12 697µs |
| `tree_expanded` | 12 083µs | 13 312µs |
| `textarea_wrapped` | 19 148µs | 22 425µs |
Three things this establishes, all of which were assumptions before:
**A wrapped textarea already misses a 60 Hz budget.** ~16 700µs per frame is
the target and p50 is 19 148µs. Scaling confirms the cause is rewrapping the
whole value: n=50 → 4 198µs, n=200 → 20 275µs, n=800 → 56 115µs, roughly
linear in content. That is the number the incremental-rewrap item below now
has to beat, rather than a suspicion.
**An unchanged frame is not free.** Diffing two identical 200×80 frames costs
3 072µs at p50 — comparable to rendering `text_rows` outright, because the
comparison walks all 16 000 cells with no early-out. The dirty-flag runtime
only diffs when something changed, so this is not currently a live cost, but
it caps how cheap a redraw can ever be.
**The layout solver is not the bottleneck.** 24 levels of nested boxes cost
less than half a wrapped textarea, which redirects optimisation effort away
from where it might otherwise have gone first.
- **Incremental rewrap for `textarea`** — rescoped by what the benchmark
actually showed, and now smaller than it looked.
A single render called `visual_rows/2` three times over: directly, then again
inside `visual_position/3`, then again inside `scroll_to_reveal/5`. Removing
that repetition needed no invalidation logic at all — `visual_rows/2` keeps a
one-entry memo keyed by the value and width themselves, so a hit requires the
key to match and there is nothing to get stale. Editing replaces the binary,
the next call misses, and that is correct.
| n paragraphs | redraw unchanged | while editing |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 2 457µs | 3 686µs |
| 200 | 5 734µs | 10 444µs |
| 800 | 6 656µs | 21 196µs |
Against the pre-memo 19 148µs at n=200, that is 1.8x on the editing path and
3.3x on redrawing unchanged content. n=200 now fits a 60 Hz budget; n=800 does
not.
**What remains is bounded by profiling, not guesswork.** At n=200 wrapping is
2 457µs of a 10 444µs render — 24% — and the rest is cell writing, which is
bounded by region size rather than content. So a line-break index with
per-line invalidation can only take a quarter off a mid-sized document. Its
value grows with size, though, because wrapping scales with content while
drawing does not: at n=800 wrapping is closer to half the cost. That makes it
worth doing for large documents and not worth doing for typical ones — which
is the opposite of the priority it had before it was measured.
- **Windowed data access for `table`** ✓ — `:rows` now accepts a
`fn offset, limit -> rows` function as well as an enumerable, with `:offset`
app-owned because keyset pagination has no row index to auto-centre on.
The benchmark corrected the reason for doing it. Render cost is flat in row
count already — 10 137µs at 200 rows, 8 908µs at 20 000 — because drawing is
bounded by the region, and the `length/1` / `find_index/2` / `drop/2`
traversals the list path performs are trivial beside cell writing. So this was
never a rendering optimisation.
What it actually buys is not *acquiring* rows nobody will see. A list-backed
table over a query issues a query for every row; a windowed one asks for
viewport-many. The benchmark could not show that because it pre-built an
in-memory list, which is exactly the kind of measurement that confirms the
wrong thing.
No `Ecto.Queryable` adapter, deliberately — see the principle below. A
query-backed table is a few lines of app code over the window function, and
building it in-tree would put a database dependency inside a terminal UI
library.
- **Documentation**: every public function has `@doc` + example. Module
guides (`guides/getting_started.md`, `guides/widgets.md`,
`guides/testing.md`, `guides/embedding.md`).
- **Examples expansion**: filemgr (two-pane), todo (text_input + list),
log_viewer (viewport + filter), git_branch_picker (tree).
- **Caps refinement**: detect terminfo entries properly; fallback table for
common terminals. Document the `Caps` API as public.
- **Public API freeze candidate**: walk every `@moduledoc false`, decide
stable-public vs internal-forever. Move stable parts to `@moduledoc`
proper.
## v1.0 — stable API
- Public API frozen per the `@moduledoc` decisions above.
- All v0.7 hardening complete.
- Announcement post + Reddit/Elixir Forum thread.
- Minimum supported: Elixir 1.19+, OTP 26+ — matching the `elixir: "~> 1.19"`
requirement `mix.exs` already ships.
---
## Out of scope (probably forever)
- Windows native console. The TTY layer is POSIX-only and that's fine.
WSL works.
- Rendering anything other than monospace cells. No Sixel, no Kitty
graphics protocol, no images. Different project.
- Web export. Different project.
## Stretch / "would be cool"
- **`Harlock.LiveView`** — a Phoenix LiveView hook that renders the same
element tree to HTML for remote viewing. Same model, two backends.
Probably v1.x.
- **Hot reload** of the app module during dev. Possible because TEA is
pure — re-invoke `view/1` after code change. Needs careful supervisor
handling.
- **Recording / replay** — log every event + final frame, replay
deterministically for bug reports. Useful for headless testing too.
## Notes for whoever picks this up
- The runtime is the spine. Don't add state to it casually — every field
is load-bearing for focus/render/sub lifecycle. New features that need
process state usually want their own GenServer, not a runtime field.
- The renderer is pure. Keep it that way. If you find yourself wanting
`IO.puts` in there, you're doing it wrong.
- Always test the crash path. `smoke_crash/0` is the template — kill a
linked process mid-render, assert the terminal is restored. New IO
paths get the same treatment.
- Read the `App.Supervisor` comment block before changing supervisor
config. The `rest_for_one` + `:temporary` runtime + Keeper-first
ordering is the entire correctness argument for clean teardown.