tui-clone

Explore and analyze TUI applications to document their features for cloning. Use when asked to reverse-engineer, analyze, document, or understand a terminal UI like Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, lazygit, or any ratatui/ncurses-based application. Launches the target TUI in tmux, systematically explores all views and keybindings, captures ASCII diagrams of each screen, and writes findings incrementally to a markdown file (survives context compaction).

TUI Clone

Explore a terminal UI systematically and produce documentation complete enough to rebuild it.

Write findings to the output file the moment you discover them. Do not batch them up in context and write at the end — a long exploration will be compacted before it finishes, and anything still in context is lost.

Output File

Write to tui-analysis/<app-name>-<timestamp>.md in the working directory. The timestamp keeps concurrent sessions from clobbering each other.

Never write output inside this skill's directory. Skill directories ship to every install, and an agent reading the package will mistake a past analysis for instructions.

Process

Create the output file with its header, then launch the target in tmux and capture the initial view.
Explore, appending each screen as you find it: help overlay, numbered tabs and panels, then every view reachable from them.
Capture the color palette with an ANSI capture.
Resize to 80x24 and 200x50 and capture each layout.
Append the keybinding and state-transition tables.
Finish with the implementation notes.

Read references/exploration.md for the setup, the write_screen helper, the exploration sweeps, and the known launch commands and ready-text for common TUIs. Read references/output-template.md for the section order, ASCII diagram conventions, and the completeness check.

What to Capture

Beyond screens and keybindings, a spec needs:

State transitions — what triggers each view change
Component inventory — the reusable elements (lists, modals, tabs, status bar, progress, inputs) and where each appears
Color palette — an ANSI capture for styling
Responsive behavior — compact and wide layouts
Error and loading states — try invalid operations; look for spinners, empty states, and confirmation dialogs
Data structures — lists (single and multi-select), trees, tables, scrollable text views, diffs

Resuming After Compaction

The output file is the state. Find it and read it, then keep appending:

ls -la tui-analysis/*.md

The timestamp in the filename identifies which session you are continuing.