SayWhat 💬

A generic, schema-driven Terminal User Interface (TUI) wizard runner built natively on Bash and dialog. Think of it as a TUI-first Cookiecutter for Bash scripts.

Define your questionnaire, menu branches, checklist steps, and text forms in a single JSON schema. SayWhat parses it dynamically, runs the interactive wizard in the console, handles back-navigation tracking, and outputs a structured JSON results object directly to stdout for downstream provisioning, templates, or installers to consume.

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Key Features

• ⚙️ Schema-Driven Flows: No hardcoded wizard loops in Bash. Define screens, menus, options, and conditional page branching in JSON.
• 📦 Zero Runtime Dependencies: Requires only standard bash and the native dialog C utility. No Python, Node.js, or heavyweight libraries required.
• 🔙 Navigation History Stack: Native support for back-navigation footprints ("back_button": true) so users can step backwards and change previous responses.
• 🗃️ Support for all major Dialog widgets:
  • Standard inputs and password forms (msgbox, yesno, inputbox, passwordbox, form)
  • Selections (menu, checklist (multi-select), radiolist (single-select))
  • Multi-select results automatically compile into native JSON Arrays
  • Large document readouts (textbox)
• 🎨 Visual Builder included: A self-contained, offline HTML/JS Visual Builder page with a premium dark-mode interface to visually design your dialog schemas and export configuration JSONs instantly.

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Getting Started

1. Requirements

Make sure dialog and jq are installed on your host system:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install dialog jq

# macOS
brew install dialog jq

2. Run the Demo Flow

Run the default project wizard showcasing all supported dialog types:

./saywhat

To run a custom schema starting at a specific node:

./saywhat path/to/your_schema.json initial_node_id

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Schema Syntax Example

A sample configuration from demo_flow.json:

[
  {
    "id": "welcome",
    "type": "msgbox",
    "text": "Welcome to the agbuild TUI Wizard Demonstration!",
    "next": "project_type"
  },
  {
    "id": "project_type",
    "type": "menu",
    "back_button": true,
    "text": "Select project template to build:",
    "options": [
      {"tag": "web", "item": "Web Application (Node.js/Vite)", "next": "web_config"},
      {"tag": "python", "item": "Python CLI tool / Service", "next": "py_config"}
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "web_config",
    "type": "form",
    "back_button": true,
    "text": "Web Application Properties:",
    "options": [
      {
        "tag": "Project Name:",
        "variable": "name",
        "default": "my-web-app"
      },
      {
        "tag": "Port:",
        "variable": "port",
        "default": "3000"
      }
    ],
    "next": ""
  }
]

Output Pipeline

Upon completion, the wizard writes a clean JSON string to stdout containing the collected results, which you can redirect or parse:

{
  "project_type_val": "web",
  "project_type_btn": "ok",
  "web_config_name": "my-custom-app",
  "web_config_port": "8080",
  "web_config_btn": "ok"
}

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Designing Schemas Visually

Open builder.html directly in any browser to use the drag-and-drop flow builder offline. Define nodes, configure properties, select dropdown types, and download your finished dialogs.json configuration file immediately.

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License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.