nvms/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.

How is this different from a bash tool?

A bash tool runs discrete commands - each invocation is fire-and-forget. The process exits, the output comes back. tui-mcp maintains a persistent, interactive session. The pty stays alive between calls. This matters when:

• The tool has state - you're in a mysql shell, you've USEd a database, you're in a transaction. A bash tool can't hold that session open between calls.
• The tool has UI - htop, vim, k9s, lazygit. A bash tool gets garbage back because these apps paint full-screen interfaces with ANSI escape codes. tui-mcp renders them into a readable screenshot or text snapshot through xterm emulation.
• The interaction is multi-step - SSH prompts for a password, then a 2FA code, then you're in. An interactive installer asks questions. git rebase -i drops you into an editor. These are conversational flows that a stateless bash tool can't handle.
• You need to watch something - tail a log, monitor a build, wait for a deploy to finish. The session stays open, the agent can snapshot whenever it wants to check progress.
• The tool requires a TTY - some CLIs behave differently (or refuse to run) without a real terminal. node-pty gives them a real pty with xterm-256color, so everything works as expected.

A bash tool is exec(). tui-mcp is "sit down at a terminal and use it like a human." One runs commands, the other operates software.

Some example outputs of the screenshot tool:

Setup

claude mcp add --scope user tui-mcp -- npx tui-mcp

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

Interesting use cases

• remote ops: agent SSHs into a production box, tails logs, greps for errors, restarts a service, watches it come back up. it's reading the same terminal output a human SRE would see. no custom APIs needed.
• legacy system interaction: ncurses admin panels, mysql cli, redis-cli, psql - the agent can drive all of these. stuff that will never get a REST API.
• multi-session orchestration: agent launches 3-4 sessions simultaneously. one running a dev server, one running tests, one tailing logs, one in a debugger. it's basically pair programming with an extra set of hands.
• interactive debuggers: gdb, lldb, pdb, node --inspect. the agent can set breakpoints, step through code, inspect variables.
• infrastructure as conversation: kubectl, terraform, docker, aws cli. agent doesn't need the kubernetes MCP server or the AWS MCP server. it just uses the CLIs directly, same as a human would.

Most MCP servers wrap one specific tool or API. tui-mcp wraps the terminal itself, which is the universal interface that all tools already speak. It's MCP's eval().

Monitor

Watch all active sessions in real-time from your terminal:

npx tui-mcp monitor

Session list on the left, live ANSI-rendered terminal preview on the right. j/k to navigate sessions, Enter to toggle fullscreen, q to quit. Requires the MCP server to be running.

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.