Reactive Terminal UI Framework for R • termr

termr is a reactive terminal user interface (TUI) framework for R. Build keyboard-driven dashboards, data explorers and analytical tools from reusable widgets and layouts. Handle events in R while termr manages terminal input, layout and incremental rendering; test interactions without opening a terminal.

Quick start

After installation, save this as hello.R and run Rscript hello.R in a real terminal:

library(termr)

application <- app(
  vertical(label("Hello from termr"), button("Quit", id = "quit")),
  on("button.pressed", "#quit", function(event, app) app$exit()),
  bind("escape", "quit")
)
run(application)

Press Enter on the button or Escape to exit. IDE consoles are not terminal hosts; use a terminal tab for interactive applications. The getting started tutorial adds a form and a headless keyboard test using stable APIs.

Installation

termr requires R 4.1 or newer.

CRAN (recommended stable release)

Install the latest stable release from CRAN:

install.packages("termr")

R-universe (alternative)

R-universe provides an R package repository that works with the standard install.packages() function. Install termr and its dependencies with:

install.packages(
  "termr",
  repos = c(
    "https://menshikovs.r-universe.dev",
    "https://cloud.r-project.org"
  )
)

GitHub (development version)

For the development version, install remotes and then install from GitHub:

install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("menshikovs/termr")

The package declares its runtime imports in DESCRIPTION; its installation command installs those package dependencies. No package-specific SystemRequirements are declared.

Start building

The function reference is generated from the package’s documented exports. The changelog is generated from NEWS.md.

Guides

The tutorials above run on this site. Detailed source guides remain available in the repository:

Data explorers and SQL workflows

data_table() provides keyboard navigation, sorting and selection for in-memory data. Combine it with metrics and event handlers in a terminal dashboard, or use browse_data() for direct exploration. Database adapters, lazy sources and sql_editor() are experimental; DBI integrations remain optional and queries are synchronous. See the SQL guide.

Core application construction, layouts, events, in-memory tables and basic headless testing are stable. The reactive graph, workers, database tools and static export remain experimental. Consult the stability policy before depending on advanced features.

See the GitHub repository for source, issues, examples, and contribution information.

termr — Reactive Terminal UI Framework for R