Interactive TUI

Launch Ante without a prompt to enter the interactive TUI:

ante

Overview

The TUI is built with ratatui and provides a rich chat interface directly in your terminal. It renders inline (up to 24 lines) and uses debounced rendering at approximately 100fps for smooth output.

Key features

Chat interface

The main view shows a conversation between you and the agent. Type your prompt in the input area and press Enter to send. The agent's responses stream in real-time with markdown rendering.

Tool approval

When the agent wants to execute a tool that requires approval (like Bash or Write), you'll see an approval prompt. You can:

• Allow the tool call
• Deny it and the agent will adjust its approach

Diff view

When the agent proposes file edits, Ante switches to a fullscreen diff view on an alternate screen. You can review the exact changes before approving.

Model and provider selection

Use the built-in selectors to switch models or providers during a session without restarting.

Theme selection

Ante includes a theme system for consistent styling. Choose a theme through the theme dialog.

Slash commands

The TUI supports built-in slash commands for common actions:

Command	Description
/clear	Clear conversation history
/init	Initialize codebase analysis
/exit	Exit (aliases: exit, quit)
/theme	Open theme selection dialog
/diff	Show git diff (including untracked files)
/connect	Connect to a provider (OAuth)
/model	Open model selector
/offline-mode	Open offline model selector
/welcome	Show onboarding/welcome dialog
/resume	Resume a previous session in this directory
/statusline	Configure the status line
/mcp	Inspect and manage configured MCP servers

note

Some commands are "visible" (appear in conversation history) and others are "silent" (execute without adding to history). /clear, /init, and /exit are visible; the rest are silent.

Skills also appear as slash commands with scope indicators: [p] for project-level, [u] for user-level, and [s] for system-level skills.

Session resume

Ante persists every session to disk. Use /resume to pick up a previous conversation where you left off.

How it works

1. Type /resume to open the session picker
2. Browse sessions scoped to the current working directory — each entry shows the first message, model, message count, and relative time
3. Press Enter to select, or Esc to cancel

On resume, Ante:

• Restores the full conversation history
• Re-discovers agents and skills in the project directory
• Refreshes system prompts and tool definitions (so new features are available)
• Replays up to 200 recent events so the TUI rebuilds the conversation view

Sessions are stored in ~/.ante/sessions/{session_id}/ with atomic writes for crash safety.

tip

You can also resume from the CLI with ante --resume <SESSION_ID> (or -r) in either TUI or headless mode. The session ID is printed when a TUI session exits.

Keyboard shortcuts

Chat input

Key	Action
Enter	Send message
Ctrl+Enter / Alt+Enter / Shift+Enter	Insert newline
Up / Down	Move cursor, then navigate history
Tab	Complete command or file path suggestion
Ctrl+R	Start reverse-i-search through prompt history
Ctrl+C	Interrupt current task (double-press to exit)
Ctrl+D	Exit application
Escape	Close popup or interrupt active task

Global shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+T	Open theme dialog
Ctrl+E	Stop running llama server (offline mode)
Ctrl+O	Toggle local inference log panel
Ctrl+K / Ctrl+J	Scroll inference log up/down

Diff view (fullscreen)

Key	Action
j / Down	Scroll down
k / Up	Scroll up
Page Down / Page Up	Page scroll
Home / End	Jump to top/bottom
q / Escape	Close diff view

Tool approval

Key	Action
a	Accept tool call
A	Accept all tool calls for this session
r	Reject/skip tool call
d	View diff preview

Reverse search (Ctrl+R mode)

Key	Action
Ctrl+R	Next match
Ctrl+S	Previous match
Enter	Accept match
Escape / Ctrl+G	Cancel search

@ mentions

Type @ in the input to reference files or directories. A file search dropdown appears as you type:

• @path/to/file.rs — embeds the file contents in your message
• @path/to/dir/ — embeds the directory tree listing

tip

If you paste multiple file paths, Ante auto-prefixes them with @ for convenience.

CLI flags for TUI mode

ante --model claude-sonnet-4-6
ante --provider openai
ante --system-prompt "You are a Python expert"
ante --append-system-prompt "Always use type hints"
ante --allowed-tools Read Grep Glob
ante --disallowed-tools Bash Write
ante --yolo                       # skip all tool approvals
ante --resume ses_01ARZ3NDEK...   # resume a previous session

Streaming

Streaming is enabled by default in TUI mode. To disable it:

ANTE_DISABLE_STREAMING=1 ante