annotui

annotui is a mouse-first terminal UI for commenting on files and piped text. It gives an immutable buffer a GitHub-style review surface, then writes the review as concise Markdown or JSON.

annotui README.md
git diff | annotui
annotui --buffer "first line
second line"

Drag across source lines and release to open the inline comment editor. Enter saves the comment. Existing comments remain visible below their ranges; reach them with Up/Down and press Enter, or click one, to edit it.

Install

Install from crates.io with Rust 1.88 or newer:

cargo install annotui

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/dutifuldev/annotui.git
cd annotui
cargo install --path .

Output

The default comments format writes only reviewed ranges and comments:

> quoted part line 1
> quoted part line 2

human comment here ...

The TUI uses /dev/tty, leaving standard output clean for pipelines:

git diff | annotui > review.md
annotui proposal.md --format full > reviewed-proposal.md
annotui src/main.rs --format json > review.json

--format full quotes the whole input and inserts comments after their selected ranges. --format json writes the versioned line-range model. See the output format reference for exact behavior.

Use --comments review.json to load and save a JSON sidecar while still choosing an independent final output format:

annotui proposal.md --comments proposal.review.json
annotui proposal.md --comments proposal.review.json --format full

The sidecar includes a source hash. annotui refuses to apply it to different content instead of silently moving comments to the wrong lines. --comments and --output must name different files.

Controls

Mouse controls:

• Drag source lines and release to comment on the range.
• Click a comment to edit it.
• Use the wheel to scroll the document or active editor.
• Saved ranges keep a green rail beside every source line they cover.
• Long source lines wrap to the available terminal width.

Keyboard controls:

Key	Action
j / k, Up/Down	Move between source lines and inline comments
Shift-Up / Shift-Down	Select a range; release Shift to write the comment
v	Start or cancel range selection
Enter	Comment on a source range, edit a focused comment, or save the editor
Shift-Enter / Alt-Enter	Insert a newline in a comment
Ctrl-O	Insert a newline in a comment
Esc	Cancel selection or editing
e / d	Edit or delete a focused comment or one on the cursor line
[ / ]	Jump to the previous/next comment
Alt-Z	Toggle source-line word wrapping (on by default)
q	Write output and quit

Pass --no-mouse when terminal mouse capture is undesirable. Native terminal text selection is unavailable while mouse capture is active.

Requirements and limits

annotui is a Unix utility and requires a controlling terminal at /dev/tty. Input must currently be valid UTF-8. Source text is never modified.

Fun fact: annotui was built in 13 user messages.

License

MIT