title: Terminal UI sidebar_label: Terminal UI description: Navigate Noteleaf’s Bubble Tea interfaces and their script-friendly counterparts. sidebar_position: 6#

Terminal UI#

Most list-style commands (tasks, notes, books) have two personalities: an interactive Bubble Tea view for exploration and a static text output for piping into other tools. This page explains how both modes behave.

Interactive Mode#

Navigation#

• Launch the TUI with the default command (noteleaf todo list, noteleaf note list, noteleaf media book add -i, etc.).
• Use j/k or the arrow keys to move the selection. Page Up/Down jump faster, while g/G (or Home/End) snap to the top or bottom depending on the view.
• Search is always available—press / and start typing to filter titles, tags, projects, or notes in real time.

Keyboard shortcuts#

All interactive components reuse the same key map defined in internal/ui/data_list.go and internal/ui/data_table.go:

The shortcuts appear in the on-screen help so you never have to memorize them all.

Selection and actions#

• Press enter to activate the primary action (open a note, view a task, confirm a media selection, etc.).
• Some screens expose extra actions on letter keys (e.g., a to archive, e to edit). They are listed alongside the contextual help (?).
• Interactive prompts such as noteleaf media movie add use the same selection model, so keyboard muscle memory carries over.

Help screens#

Hit ? at any time to open the inline help overlay. It mirrors the bindings configured for the active component and also hints at hidden actions. Press esc, backspace, or ? again to exit.

Static Mode#

Command-line output#

Add --static (or remove -i) to force plain text output. Examples:

noteleaf todo list --static
noteleaf note list --static --tag meeting
noteleaf media book list --all --static

Static mode prints tables with headings so they are easy to read or parse. Commands that default to prompts (like noteleaf media movie add) fall back to a numbered list when you omit -i.

Scripting with Noteleaf#

Static output is predictable, making it straightforward to combine with familiar utilities:

noteleaf todo list --static --project docs | rg "pending"
noteleaf note list --static | fzf

Because each row includes the record ID, you can feed the result back into follow-up commands (noteleaf note view 42, noteleaf todo done 128, etc.).

Output formatting#

The task viewer supports the --format flag for quick summaries:

noteleaf todo view 12 --format brief
noteleaf todo view 12 --format detailed  # default

Brief mode hides timestamps and auxiliary metadata, which keeps CI logs or chat snippets short. Future commands will inherit the same pattern.

JSON output#

Use --json wherever it exists (currently on task views/lists) for structured output:

noteleaf todo view 12 --json | jq '.status'
noteleaf todo list --static --json | jq '.[] | select(.status=="pending")'

JSON mode ignores terminal colors and uses machine-friendly field names so you can script exports without touching the SQLite file directly.