ttybus

Home: github.com/ttyzero/ttybus (moved from tjstebbing/ttybus).

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| TTYBus   |
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A text message bus for TUIs, CLIs, and shell scripts.

Unix programs compose with pipes. TUIs cannot: stdin is the keyboard and stdout is the screen. ttybus is the side channel. TUIs never join a pipeline. A small CLI does.

ttybus serve                  # user daemon; also auto-started by pub/sub

ttybus pub  files main.go
echo main.go | ttybus pub files
ttybus sub  files             # lines on stdout until Ctrl-C
ttybus sub  files --limit 1   # one line, then exit 0

# compose like any Unix filter
ttybus sub animals | grep --line-buffered '^cat' | ttybus pub cats

ttybus ls
ttybus send --to yazi-1 files main.go
ttybus plumb main.go:42

grep block-buffers when its stdout is a pipe. Use GNU grep --line-buffered, or awk '/^cat/ { print; fflush() }'.

Speak the protocol yourself:

nc -U "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ttybus/bus.sock"
HELLO name=demo pid=$$
SUB files
PUB files /tmp/hello.go

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ttyzero/ttybus/main/install.sh | sh

Installs to ~/.local/bin. Pin a release or put the binary somewhere else:

VERSION=v0.1.0 PREFIX=/usr/local curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ttyzero/ttybus/main/install.sh | sh

Linux amd64/arm64 and macOS amd64/arm64. Needs curl, tar, and a GitHub release (tag v*).

Companion TUIs (gitwing, peek, buscope, ttythemer) are a second, optional step — same PREFIX / BINDIR:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ttyzero/ttybus/main/install-kit.sh | sh

Subset: sh -s -- gitwing peek, or TOOLS=ttythemer. Pin with VERSION=v0.1.0. SOURCE=go builds from module source instead of release tarballs.

From source:

go install github.com/ttyzero/ttybus/cmd/ttybus@latest
# or
make build
./ttybus serve --foreground

Why

A TUI running in one tmux pane has no Unix-native way to tell a TUI in another pane "open this file", or to let a shell script inject an event, or to emit something grep can see without trashing the alternate screen.

Each TUI that has solved this has grown a private bus (Yazi DDS, lf -remote, Kakoune sockets). ttybus is the shared one: text lines over a unix stream socket, a CLI that behaves like cat/tee for named channels, an optional plumber for "this looks like a file:line → editor".

This is a clean-room take on an idea from 2018 (ttyzero/minibus). Clients connect in; the protocol is newline-delimited text; the CLI is pipeline-correct (line-flushed, logs on stderr, never opens /dev/tty).

Rules of the road

1. TUIs never participate in pipelines. stdin = keys, stdout = screen, socket = bus.
2. The CLI is a Unix filter. Logs go to stderr. Every message is one line, flushed. --limit and --timeout exist so scripts can block without head races. Timeout exits 124 like GNU timeout.
3. Text on the wire. PUB files {"path":"…"} is fine; JSON as the envelope is not. nc, grep, and awk must work.
4. One user daemon, socket at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ttybus/bus.sock (or $TMPDIR/ttybus-<uid>/bus.sock). Named buses (--bus NAME / $TTYBUS_BUS) isolate multiplexer sessions.

A TUI can export TTYBUS_ID so shells it spawns identify themselves. Full contract: docs/PROTOCOL.md.

Go helper

c, err := ttybus.Dial(ttybus.DefaultSocket())
_ = c.Hello(ttybus.Info{Name: "mytui"})
ch, _ := c.Sub("files")
_ = c.Pub("files", path)

See client/ and examples/bubbletea.

Plumber

~/.config/ttybus/plumb (or $TTYBUS_PLUMB):

match ^([^\s:]+):(\d+)$
  pub editor.open

match ^https?://
  exec open $0

match \.(go|rs|py)$
  pub editor.open

$0 is the whole text; $1… are capture groups. First match wins.

Layout

cmd/ttybus/          serve | pub | sub | ls | send | plumb
internal/protocol/   line parser
internal/daemon/     socket server, subscriptions, fan-out
internal/socket/     path resolution, flock, auto-start
internal/plumb/      rule file
client/              Go helper for TUI authors
examples/bubbletea/  bus messages as Bubble Tea Msg
contrib/             tmux.conf, systemd --user unit
docs/PROTOCOL.md     wire spec
install.sh           ttybus binary
install-kit.sh       optional companion TUIs
PLAN.md              implementation notes

Prior art

Closest production system is Yazi DDS (ya pub / ya sub), which is Yazi-only. Philosophical ancestor is Plan 9 plumber. D-Bus is the desktop equivalent and is the thing we are deliberately not.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.