just-for-vibes (j4v)

A TUI web browser. Any website, rendered as a pure terminal interface.

Concept

• Homepage: Google-style search page (input + Search + I'm Feeling Lucky)
• Search results: real websites, clickable
• Clicking a result: proxied through a Cloudflare Worker that converts HTML → TUI-renderable format
• Usable by humans AND AI agents (it's already text)

Architecture

j4v (single Rust binary, 3.7MB)
├── TUI mode (default): interactive terminal browser
├── Agent mode (--json): structured output for AI agents
└── Direct mode (--url): fetch + render a specific page

No server, no proxy, no deployment. Just a fast local binary.

Stack

• Language: Rust + ratatui (instant startup, zero GC, single binary)
• Search: DuckDuckGo HTML lite (free, no API key)
• Rendering: HTML → strip noise → structured text (headings, paragraphs, links)

Usage

# Interactive TUI browser
j4v

# Fetch a page directly
j4v --url https://example.com

# Agent mode: JSON output for AI consumption
j4v --url https://example.com --json

Wire Format (draft)

{
  "title": "Page Title",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "elements": [
    {"type": "heading", "level": 1, "text": "Welcome"},
    {"type": "text", "content": "Some paragraph text..."},
    {"type": "link", "text": "Click here", "href": "/page2"},
    {"type": "input", "name": "q", "placeholder": "Search..."},
    {"type": "button", "text": "Submit", "action": "/search"},
    {"type": "list", "items": ["Item 1", "Item 2"]},
    {"type": "image", "alt": "Photo description", "src": "..."}
  ]
}

Milestones

1. Search: DDG search from homepage ✅
2. Browse: Fetch + render page content ✅
3. Agent mode: --url and --json flags for non-interactive use
4. Better parsing: Handle more HTML elements, word wrapping
5. Navigation: Click links within pages, back/forward stack
6. Forms: Submit search forms, login forms
7. Polish: Loading states, error handling, bookmarks, history