tui-mcp

What Chrome DevTools MCP is for the browser, tui-mcp is for the terminal.

Launch any terminal app in a managed pty, take screenshots, read text, send keystrokes. The app thinks it's running in a real terminal. Works with any TUI framework or no framework at all - vim, htop, bubbletea, textual, ink, inquirer, trend, ncurses, whatever.

Setup

npm install

Register with your MCP client. For example, with Claude Code:

claude mcp add --scope user tui-mcp node /path/to/tui-mcp/src/server.js

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | launch | Spawn a TUI app in a managed pty | | kill | Terminate a session | | list_sessions | List active sessions | | resize | Resize the terminal | | screenshot | Capture terminal as PNG | | snapshot | Capture terminal as plain text | | read_region | Read a rectangular area of the buffer | | cursor | Get cursor position | | send_keys | Send a keystroke or combo (Enter, Ctrl+C, Up, q) | | send_text | Type a string of characters | | send_mouse | Send mouse events | | wait_for_text | Wait for a regex pattern to appear | | wait_for_idle | Wait until the terminal stops changing |

How it works

your app  <-->  node-pty  <-->  xterm-headless  <-->  MCP tools
                (pty)        (terminal emulator)    (screenshot, send_keys, etc.)

The app runs in a real pseudo-terminal via node-pty. Its output is parsed by xterm-headless (the same terminal emulator that powers VS Code's terminal, but without a DOM). The MCP tools read and interact with that parsed buffer.