termtools

A beautiful Textual TUI to browse the CLI tools you have installed on your system.

🚀 Install

⭐ Use pipx — it's the only method that works on every modern system ⭐

Modern macOS, Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora block plain pip install for safety (PEP 668 / "externally-managed-environment"). pipx is the fix. It manages an isolated environment for you, works everywhere, and is the standard way to install Python CLI tools in 2025.

✅ Recommended — pipx (works on every OS)

macOS:

brew install pipx
pipx install termtools-tui

Linux (Debian / Ubuntu):

sudo apt install pipx
pipx install termtools-tui

Linux (Fedora):

sudo dnf install pipx
pipx install termtools-tui

Windows:

python -m pip install --user pipx
python -m pipx ensurepath
pipx install termtools-tui

Then just run:

termtools

⚠️ Fallback — plain pip (only if you refuse to install pipx)

If you see error: externally-managed-environment you'll need to add --break-system-packages. The flag name sounds scary, but combined with --user it only touches your personal folder — it does not modify the system Python:

pip3 install --user --break-system-packages termtools-tui

If termtools isn't found after install, add the user-bin folder to your $PATH:

• macOS: ~/Library/Python/3.X/bin
• Linux: ~/.local/bin
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Python\PythonXY\Scripts

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"   # add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc

Update

pipx upgrade termtools-tui                                       # pipx
pip install --upgrade --user --break-system-packages termtools-tui   # pip fallback

Uninstall

pipx uninstall termtools-tui
# or
pip uninstall termtools-tui

Features

• Scans your $PATH against a curated catalog of ~100 CLI tools across 13 categories
• Tabs to filter: Editors, Search, File & Disk, Git, System, Network, Languages, Package Managers, Containers, Data, Shells, AI, Fun, plus a "Cool Picks ★" tab
• Live search bar
• Per-tool detail pane: description, path, size
• Buttons to Run, Inspect, and view Install info with copy-paste install commands for brew, apt, dnf, pacman, apk, winget, scoop, and chocolatey

Keys

• / focus search
• r refresh
• enter inspect selected tool
• q quit