menu

A personal terminal command launcher for macOS. menu replaces a large alias file with a searchable Ink UI backed by real PTYs, so long-running and interactive commands can keep running in the right-hand task pane.

The name is intentionally plain. Better candidates: cmddeck, aliasdeck, or launchpad if you want something less generic.

Installation

From this repo, run this once:

npm run install-cli

After that, use it from anywhere:

menu

npm link registers the package's bin entry globally, so you do not need to add this app directory itself to PATH. If menu is still not found, your npm global bin directory is not on PATH; check it with:

npm prefix -g

The binary will be linked under that directory's bin/ folder. Add that folder to your shell PATH once.

During development you can run:

npm run dev

Adding Commands

Use the interactive command creator:

menu cmd

It asks for:

• Name
• Command
• Working directory
• Background behavior

If the name already exists, menu cmd tells you and asks whether to overwrite that command or enter a different name.

Editing Config

Open the raw config file directly:

menu config

This creates the config file first if needed, then opens it with $VISUAL, $EDITOR, or vi.

Config

On first run, menu creates an empty config at ~/.config/menu/commands.json if it does not already exist.

Example config:

[
  {
    "title": "List files",
    "command": "ls -la"
  },
  {
    "title": "Start API server",
    "command": "npm run dev",
    "cwd": "~/Sites/my-api",
    "background": true
  },
  {
    "title": "Run tests",
    "command": "npm test",
    "background": false
  }
]

Fields:

• title: Label shown in the command list.
• command: Shell command to run.
• cwd: Optional working directory. Relative paths are resolved from the directory where menu was launched. If omitted, the command runs in the launch directory.
• background: Optional. When true, the command is immediately tracked as a background task. When false, it stays in the output pane. When omitted, menu waits about two seconds: commands that are still running move to the background task pane automatically.

You can override the config path with:

MENU_CONFIG=/path/to/commands.json menu
MENU_CONFIG=/path/to/commands.json menu cmd

Keys

• Type to fuzzy-search commands.
• up / down or ctrl-p / ctrl-n: move selection.
• enter: run the selected command.
• tab / shift-tab: move focus between commands, output, and background tasks.
• ctrl-r: reload the config file.
• ctrl-c: quits from the command list, or sends ctrl-c to the focused foreground/background PTY.

When a background task is focused in the right pane, it expands and receives keyboard input directly.