What's new

• Async I/O — input and output are independent. No blocking. The agent can send messages, react, and show typing indicators without waiting for your input.

• Multi-chat — sidebar with multiple conversations. Ctrl+N to create, Ctrl+J / Ctrl+K to switch. Each chat has its own space ID.

• Replies and reactions — select a message to reply; react with emoji. Both arrive as first-class events in your agent code.

• Typing indicators — startTyping / stopTyping work like they do on iMessage and WhatsApp.

• File attachments — drag and drop. Arrives as attachment content with name, MIME type, and a buffer.

• Inline images — Kitty graphics protocol on supported terminals, half-block fallback elsewhere.

• Console capture — console.log is forwarded to a pinned system chat so it doesn't corrupt the TUI.

All of these map 1:1 to Spectrum's production providers (iMessage, WhatsApp). If it works here, it works there.

Example

This is examples/basic — it handles messages, replies, and reactions in one loop:

import { Spectrum, text } from "spectrum-ts";
import { terminal } from "spectrum-ts/providers/terminal";

const app = await Spectrum({ providers: [terminal.config()] });

const seeded = new Set<string>();

for await (const [space, message] of app.messages) {
  console.log("RAW:", JSON.stringify(message, null, 0));

  if (!seeded.has(space.id)) {
    seeded.add(space.id);
    await space.send(text("hi! reply to me or react with ↑ → r/e"));
  }

  if (message.content.type === "reaction") {
    console.log(
      `reaction ${message.content.emoji} on msg ${message.content.target.slice(0, 8)}…`
    );
    continue;
  }

  if (message.content.type !== "text") {
    continue;
  }

  await message.react("👀");

  const replyTo = (message as { replyTo?: { messageId: string } }).replyTo;
  if (replyTo) {
    console.log(
      `REPLY to ${replyTo.messageId.slice(0, 8)}…: "${message.content.text}"`
    );
    await message.reply(text("acknowledged your reply"));
  } else {
    console.log(`message: "${message.content.text}"`);
    await space.send(text(`echo: ${message.content.text}`));
  }
}

import { Spectrum, text } from "spectrum-ts";
import { terminal } from "spectrum-ts/providers/terminal";

const app = await Spectrum({ providers: [terminal.config()] });

const seeded = new Set<string>();

for await (const [space, message] of app.messages) {
  console.log("RAW:", JSON.stringify(message, null, 0));

  if (!seeded.has(space.id)) {
    seeded.add(space.id);
    await space.send(text("hi! reply to me or react with ↑ → r/e"));
  }

  if (message.content.type === "reaction") {
    console.log(
      `reaction ${message.content.emoji} on msg ${message.content.target.slice(0, 8)}…`
    );
    continue;
  }

  if (message.content.type !== "text") {
    continue;
  }

  await message.react("👀");

  const replyTo = (message as { replyTo?: { messageId: string } }).replyTo;
  if (replyTo) {
    console.log(
      `REPLY to ${replyTo.messageId.slice(0, 8)}…: "${message.content.text}"`
    );
    await message.reply(text("acknowledged your reply"));
  } else {
    console.log(`message: "${message.content.text}"`);
    await space.send(text(`echo: ${message.content.text}`));
  }
}

import { Spectrum, text } from "spectrum-ts";
import { terminal } from "spectrum-ts/providers/terminal";

const app = await Spectrum({ providers: [terminal.config()] });

const seeded = new Set<string>();

for await (const [space, message] of app.messages) {
  console.log("RAW:", JSON.stringify(message, null, 0));

  if (!seeded.has(space.id)) {
    seeded.add(space.id);
    await space.send(text("hi! reply to me or react with ↑ → r/e"));
  }

  if (message.content.type === "reaction") {
    console.log(
      `reaction ${message.content.emoji} on msg ${message.content.target.slice(0, 8)}…`
    );
    continue;
  }

  if (message.content.type !== "text") {
    continue;
  }

  await message.react("👀");

  const replyTo = (message as { replyTo?: { messageId: string } }).replyTo;
  if (replyTo) {
    console.log(
      `REPLY to ${replyTo.messageId.slice(0, 8)}…: "${message.content.text}"`
    );
    await message.reply(text("acknowledged your reply"));
  } else {
    console.log(`message: "${message.content.text}"`);
    await space.send(text(`echo: ${message.content.text}`));
  }
}

This is the same code you'd ship on iMessage or WhatsApp. Nothing here is terminal-specific — reaction, replyTo, space.send, message.reply are all standard Spectrum APIs. The only thing that changes between providers is the import and the config line.

How it works

tuichat is a compiled Go binary (Bubble Tea + Lip Gloss). The Spectrum adapter spawns it as a subprocess and communicates over JSON-RPC 2.0 on a local TCP socket.

The binary auto-downloads from GitHub Releases on first run, verified against SHA256 checksums, and cached locally. No new runtime dependencies.

Why a separate binary: Spectrum supports multiple languages (TypeScript today, Python/Go/Rust planned). A shared UI binary means every SDK gets the same terminal experience without reimplementing rendering, input handling, and image support in each language. The adapter just speaks the protocol.

Known issues

• Message editing not yet supported.

• macOS Gatekeeper may flag the binary on first run. xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/tuichat clears it. Notarization is coming.

• replyTo is surfaced via a type cast. A future release will promote it to the core message type.

Get started

bun add spectrum-ts@latest
cd examples/basic
bun run start

bun add spectrum-ts@latest
cd examples/basic
bun run start

bun add spectrum-ts@latest
cd examples/basic
bun run start

• spectrum-ts

• tuichat

• Spectrum docs