Build Your Own Agent TUI

The create-agent-tui skill scaffolds a complete agent TUI (terminal user interface) in TypeScript — like create-react-app for terminal agents. Tell your AI coding agent what kind of agent you want, and it generates a runnable project targeting OpenRouter with a fully customizable terminal interface, tools, and configuration.

Under the hood, this is a full agent harness: the generated project uses @openrouter/agent for the inner loop (model calls, tool execution, stop conditions) and provides everything around it — configuration, tool definitions, session management, and the entry point.

When to build your own

Building a custom agent TUI makes sense when:

• You want to customize the look — create a fun UI or a custom one for your project or team
• You need custom tools — your agent interacts with your own APIs, databases, or domain-specific systems that generic agents can’t reach
• You want control over the loop — you need custom stop conditions, approval flows, cost limits, or model selection logic that hosted agents don’t expose
• You’re shipping a product — the agent is part of your application, not a developer tool, and you need to own the entry point (CLI, API server, embedded)
• You want to learn — understanding how agents work at the tool-execution level makes you better at using and debugging them

If you’re already using Claude Code, Codex CLI, or Cursor as-is, you probably don’t need this — those are already production agent TUIs. This skill is for when you need to build your own.

Install the skill

The create-agent-tui skill is part of the OpenRouter Skills collection. Install it with your AI coding agent of choice:

$
gh skill install OpenRouterTeam/skills create-agent-tui

Once installed, ask your agent something like “build me an agent TUI” or “scaffold a coding assistant” and the skill activates automatically.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• An OpenRouter API key

How it works

The skill presents your coding agent with an interactive checklist of tools, modules, visual styles, and slash commands. You pick what you need, and the agent generates the entire project — ready to run with npm start.

What @openrouter/agent handles

Visual customization

Every part of the terminal UI is customizable. The skill lets you choose each style when scaffolding, and you can override them at launch via CLI flags or in the config file.

Tool display styles

Choose how tool calls appear during agent execution. Set display.toolDisplay in your config or pass --tool-display at launch.

Grouped — bold action labels with tree-branch output:

Emoji — per-call markers with tool name, arguments, and timing:

Minimal — aggregated one-liner summaries:

You can also describe a completely custom tool display style and the skill will implement it for you.

Input styles

Three input styles are available via display.inputStyle or --input.

Block — full-width background input box that adapts to your terminal theme:

Bordered — horizontal line frame that works on any terminal:

Plain — simple readline prompt, no escape sequences:

You can also describe a completely custom input style and the skill will implement it for you.

Loader animations

Three loader styles shown while waiting for the model response. Set display.loader.style and display.loader.text in config.

Gradient — scrolling color shimmer:

Spinner — braille dot animation:

Minimal — trailing dots:

You can also describe a completely custom loader animation and the skill will implement it for you.

ASCII banner

Enable showBanner or pass --banner "Your Agent Name" to display a custom ASCII art logo on startup. The skill generates block-letter art for your project name using the █ character, colored and sized to fit a 60-column terminal.

Generated project structure

With default options selected, the skill generates this layout:

my-agent/
  package.json              @openrouter/agent, zod, tsx
  tsconfig.json             ES2022, Node16, strict
  .env.example              OPENROUTER_API_KEY=
  src/
    config.ts               Layered config (defaults -> file -> env)
    agent.ts                Core runner with retry
    cli.ts                  Interactive REPL with streaming
    session.ts              JSONL conversation persistence
    terminal-bg.ts          Adaptive background detection
    renderer.ts             Tool display renderer
    loader.ts               Loader animation
    commands.ts             Slash command registry
    tools/
      index.ts              Tool registry + server tools
      file-read.ts          Read files with offset/limit
      file-write.ts         Write/create files
      file-edit.ts          Search-and-replace with diff
      glob.ts               Find files by pattern
      grep.ts               Search content by regex
      list-dir.ts           List directory entries
      shell.ts              Execute commands with timeout

Run it with:

$
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-..."
$
npm start

Override visual styles at launch:

$
npm start -- --banner "Acme Bot" --model '~anthropic/claude-sonnet-latest' --input bordered --tool-display emoji

Customization options

The skill presents a checklist when invoked. Items marked on are pre-selected defaults.

Server tools

Executed by OpenRouter server-side — zero client code needed.

User-defined tools

Generated into src/tools/ with full implementations.

Harness modules

Architectural components that extend the core agent harness.

Slash commands

User-facing REPL commands generated into src/commands.ts.

Entry points

The skill generates a CLI REPL by default, but you can also ask for:

• HTTP API server — Express/Hono server with SSE streaming for building web-accessible agents
• Both — CLI for development, server for production

Example

Here’s a demo app built entirely by the agent TUI skill — a GitHub trending repos viewer, scaffolded and running from a single prompt:

Resources

• Create Agent TUI skill README
• OpenRouter Skills repository
• @openrouter/agent on npm
• OpenRouter TypeScript SDK
• Server Tools documentation
• OpenRouter API keys