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mini-tui

Install mini-tui

Install mini-tui with Bun in about a minute, with the Rust agent (one binary, no Python) or the bundled Python agent, then start the terminal UI or the web app.

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Requirements

  • Bun 1.3 or newer. OpenTUI ships a native renderer; Node 26.4 or newer also works.

  • An agent, one of:

    • the Rust agent (recommended): one static binary, no Python. It starts in under a millisecond and holds about 4.5 MB per waiting session.
    • Python 3.10 or newer with the bundled agent installed, or any mini on your PATH.

    Your ~/.config/mini-swe-agent/.env is honored either way. See Python or Rust agent for the comparison.

  • A model key for at least one provider, or a running gateway. You add keys later, inside the app.

Install

git clone https://github.com/jaivial/mini-tui && cd mini-tui
bun install

Then the agent. With Rust (recommended), download the static binary where mini-tui looks for it:

mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/mini-tui
curl -fLo ~/.local/lib/mini-tui/mini-agent-rs \
  https://github.com/jaivial/mini-tui/releases/latest/download/mini-agent-rs-x86_64-linux-musl
chmod +x ~/.local/lib/mini-tui/mini-agent-rs

Or with Python, the bundled mini-swe-agent:

python3 -m pip install -e ./agent   # `mini` and `mini-swe-agent-tui`

With both installed, mini-tui uses Rust. MINITUI_AGENT=python picks Python.

Optionally, make mini-tui available everywhere:

cp bin/mini-tui ~/.local/bin/mini-tui && chmod +x ~/.local/bin/mini-tui

Start it

mini-tui                      # the terminal UI, prompt bar ready
bun run web                   # the web app on http://127.0.0.1:4317

The web app builds its interface first, then serves everything from one process. To work on it with hot reload, use bun run web:dev.

Connect a model

Open /connect in the terminal UI, or Settings, Providers in the web app. Paste a key and mini-tui sends one real request to check it before saving anything. Keys are stored in ~/.config/mini-tui/providers.json with 0600 permissions and are never sent back out by the web API.

Update

git pull && bun install
# Rust agent: download the latest binary again (same command as above)
curl -fLo ~/.local/lib/mini-tui/mini-agent-rs \
  https://github.com/jaivial/mini-tui/releases/latest/download/mini-agent-rs-x86_64-linux-musl
# Python agent:
python3 -m pip install -e ./agent

Release notes are in the changelog.