jui

Find and run the right just recipe as fast as possible.

jui is a keyboard-first terminal launcher for just. Open it, start typing, press Enter, and get back to work without memorizing recipe names or scrolling through a long just --list output.

jui  /path/to/project/justfile
Search: dev_

  ✓ build                    Build the application
    dev                      Start the development server
    dev-clean                Reset and start development
    test                     Run the test suite

Why jui

Large projects often accumulate dozens of useful recipes. The commands are easy to write and hard to remember.

jui is designed to minimize the time between thinking of a task and running it:

1. Run jui
2. Start typing immediately
3. Press Enter

There is no search mode to enter, no mouse required, and no editor dependency.

Features

• Finds the nearest justfile by walking up from the current directory
• Uses just --summary as the source of truth for available recipes
• Includes recipes exposed through imports, aliases, attributes, and supported just syntax
• Filters recipe names and descriptions as soon as you type
• Highlights the selected row clearly
• Streams command output directly to the terminal
• Returns to the recipe list automatically after successful commands
• Keeps jui alive when Ctrl-C stops a long-running command such as a development server
• Pauses after failures so error output can be read
• Tracks recipe results for the current session:
  • ✓ succeeded
  • ✗ failed
  • ■ stopped with Ctrl-C
• Preserves command output while removing the jui interface when you quit
• Uses only the Go standard library at runtime

Requirements

• just installed and available on PATH
• stty and an ANSI-compatible terminal
• Go 1.23.2 or newer when building from source

Install

Install the latest release with Go:

go install github.com/iOSDeveloperGuy/jui/cmd/jui@latest

To install the current development version from main:

go install github.com/iOSDeveloperGuy/jui/cmd/jui@main

Make sure the Go binary directory is on your PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"

You can also download a prebuilt binary from the GitHub Releases page.

Usage

Run jui from a directory containing a justfile, or from any child directory:

jui

Then type part of a recipe name or description and press Enter.

Check the installed version:

jui --version

Controls

Key	Action
Type	Filter recipes immediately
Backspace	Remove the last search character
Up	Select the previous recipe
Down	Select the next recipe
Enter	Run the selected recipe
Escape	Clear an active search
Escape	Quit when the search is empty
Ctrl-C	Quit while viewing the recipe list
Ctrl-C	Stop a running recipe and return to jui

Successful commands return to jui automatically. Failed commands wait for Enter so their output is not hidden before you can inspect it.

Recipe descriptions

Descriptions come from comments immediately above recipes when source metadata is available:

# Start the local development environment
dev:
    npm run dev

# Run the complete test suite
test:
    go test ./...

Recipe availability comes from just itself rather than from a hand-written parser, so jui can show the same runnable recipe set as the normal command line.

Long-running commands

Recipes that start development servers or watchers work normally:

# Start the frontend development server
dev:
    npm run dev

Run dev from jui, then press Ctrl-C when you are finished. The server stops and jui returns to the recipe list so another command can be launched immediately.

Development

go test ./...
go build ./cmd/jui

Release

Tags matching v* trigger the GitHub Actions release workflow. GoReleaser builds archives for macOS, Linux, and Windows.

License

MIT