AshTui

Terminal-based interactive explorer for Ash Framework applications, built on ExRatatui.

Navigate your domains, resources, attributes, actions, and relationships — without leaving the terminal.

Features

• Two-panel navigable interface with domain/resource tree
• Three detail tabs: Attributes, Actions, Relationships
• Attribute detail overlay — press Enter for full details including constraints, with checkbox indicators for boolean fields
• Relationship navigation with breadcrumb trail and back stack
• Resource search/filter — press / to filter the navigation panel
• Scrollbar indicators when lists overflow the viewport
• Vim keybindings (j/k/h/l) and arrow key support
• Tab switching with Tab or 1/2/3
• Help overlay
• No database connection needed — reads compile-time metadata only
• mix ash.tui task for instant launch

UI Layout

┌─ Search ─────────────┐ ┌─ Accounts.User ─────────────────────┐
│ / search...           │ │  Attributes │ Actions │ Relationships│
├─ Navigation ─────────┤ ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ◆ Accounts          │ │ Name        Type       Required?     │
│    └ User ◀          │ │ ────        ────       ────────      │
│    └ Token           │ │ :id         :uuid      🔑 auto      │▒
│  ◆ Blog              │ │ :email      :ci_string ✓ yes        │▒
│                      │ │ :name       :string    ○             │
│                      │ │ :role       :atom      ○             │
│                      │ │                                      │
└──────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────────────┘
 j/k navigate  / search  Enter select  ? help  q quit

Installation

Add ash_tui to your dependencies (:dev only recommended):

def deps do
  [
    {:ash_tui, "~> 0.2", only: :dev}
  ]
end

Usage

Launch the explorer from your Ash project:

mix ash.tui

The OTP app is auto-detected from your mix.exs. To specify it explicitly:

mix ash.tui --otp-app my_app

You can also launch programmatically:

AshTui.explore(:my_app)

How It Works

AshTui uses Ash's compile-time introspection API to load your domain model:

mix ash.tui
  → Mix.Task.run("app.start")
  → Ash.Info.domains(otp_app)
  → Ash.Domain.Info.resources(domain)
  → Ash.Resource.Info.attributes/actions/relationships(resource)
  → Pre-loaded into navigable state struct
  → ExRatatui.App renders it

No database connection is needed. The tool reads the shape of your app, not its data.

Keybindings

Navigation

Key	Action
j / Down	Move selection down
k / Up	Move selection up
h / Left	Focus navigation panel
l / Right	Focus detail panel
Enter	Select item / drill into relationship / show attribute detail
Esc	Go back / close overlay

Tabs

Key	Action
Tab	Cycle through tabs
1	Attributes tab
2	Actions tab
3	Relationships tab

Search

Key	Action
/	Start filtering resources
Enter	Accept filter
Esc	Clear filter and cancel

Other

Key	Action
?	Toggle help overlay
q	Quit

Example App

The examples/ash_demo directory contains a small Ash application with two domains (Accounts and Blog) for trying out the explorer:

cd examples/ash_demo
mix deps.get
mix ash.tui

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.

AshTui is built on ExRatatui, a general-purpose terminal UI library for Elixir. If you're interested in improving the underlying rendering, widgets, or layout engine, contributions to ExRatatui are very welcome as well.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.