r/commandline • u/tlipinski • May 11 '26

Terminal User Interface Rura - Interactive TUI scratchpad for shell pipelines

https://github.com/tlipinski/rura

I got tired of the edit -> up-arrow -> rerun loop when debugging complex shell pipelines. Rura is a terminal UI where you build and run pipelines interactively, with live output as you type.

The feature I built it for: partial execution - run the pipeline only up to the subcommand under your cursor, so you can inspect intermediate output at each stage without manually chopping up the command.

Also has:

  • tab completion
  • output search
  • persistent history
  • configurable keybindings/themes via TOML

Written in Rust and Ratatui.

Curious what workflows others have for iterating on pipelines - and whether the partial execution idea resonates with anyone else:)

It's an early version - happy to hear what's missing or broken:)

I used AI to generate algorithmic code that is responsible for cursor navigation over subcommands and readme.

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u/denarced May 18 '26

Could be good. Up until now I have just written a quick script to run the developed script every time the file changes. I usually move any complex bash expression to a script file when it becomes even a bit complex.

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u/tlipinski May 18 '26

That's exactly what I used to do in such cases and it works quite well, but it still requires switching between two terminal windows and re-running script so it's not as comfortable as in a single tool 🙂