Micronaut Launch TUI

A terminal UI for creating Micronaut projects through Micronaut Launch, built with TamboUI.

Why

The hardest part of creating a Micronaut project is finding the right features: there are hundreds of them. mtui puts them in one searchable list, so you type a few letters, press Space and move on, without leaving the terminal or unzipping a download.

It was inspired by Dan Vega’s spring-initializr-tui, which does the same for Spring Boot.

Features

• Search every feature by name, title or description, and see what you have selected at all times
• Choose the application type, language, build tool, test framework and JDK
• Switch between the latest Micronaut release and the current snapshot
• Preview the generated files before creating anything
• Unzip the project straight into the current directory
• Open the project with your editor or IDE once it is created
• Press ? on any screen to see its keys

Screenshots

Name and options

Type the project name, then pick the Micronaut version, application type, language, build tool, test framework and JDK.

Features

Press / to search, Space to select. The features you have chosen stay listed on the right.

Preview

Press p to browse the files Launch would generate, with f to jump to a file by name.

Help

Press ? on any screen for every key it understands.

Install

With the GitHub CLI, this installs or updates mtui in ~/.local/bin (make sure it’s on your PATH). On Linux, use '*linux-x86_64*' as the pattern:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
gh release download -R leeturner/micronaut-launch-tui -p '*macos-aarch64*' -O - | tar -xz -C ~/.local/bin

A download made by gh isn’t quarantined, so macOS doesn’t block it.

Or download the archive for your platform from the latest release:

Unpack it and move mtui somewhere on your PATH:

tar -xzf mtui-*-macos-aarch64.tar.gz
mv mtui /usr/local/bin/

The binary isn’t signed. If macOS blocks it, clear the quarantine flag:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/mtui

The Windows binary is built but hasn’t been tested on Windows yet.

Build and run

To run it from source instead, you need Java 25.

./gradlew shadowJar
java -jar build/libs/micronaut-launch-tui-dev-all.jar

Run it from anywhere

Add an alias to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

alias mtui='java -jar /path/to/micronaut-launch-tui/build/libs/micronaut-launch-tui-dev-all.jar'

Then create projects from wherever you keep them. The project is unzipped into the current directory:

cd ~/dev
mtui

Open the project when it’s created

Give mtui the command that opens a project, and it runs it with the new project’s path once it’s created:

mtui --open idea

Or set it once in your shell profile. --open wins if both are set:

export MTUI_OPEN=idea

Keys

Every list moves with the arrow keys or j/k, / starts a search, and ? shows all of the current screen’s keys.

Development

./gradlew build         # tests, Kotlinter and Detekt
./gradlew formatKotlin  # fix formatting

To build the native binary, you need GraalVM 25 (Gradle finds it through GRAALVM_HOME or JAVA_HOME). The binary is written to build/native/nativeCompile/mtui:

./gradlew nativeCompile

The work is planned in slices on the roadmap, each with its own design in docs/superpowers/specs.

Screenshots

The images in docs/images are made with vhs from the tapes in docs/tapes. They use the live Launch server, so they show whatever it offers on the day. To regenerate them, from the repo root:

./gradlew shadowJar
for tape in docs/tapes/{demo,form,picker,preview,help}.tape; do vhs "$tape"; done