winget-tui

A terminal user interface for Windows Package Manager (winget). Search, install, uninstall, and upgrade Windows packages without leaving your terminal.

Features

• Search & Discover — Find packages across all winget sources
• Installed Packages — View everything installed on your system
• Upgrade Management — See available updates at a glance
• Source Filtering — Filter by source (winget, msstore, or all)
• Package Details — View publisher, description, license, homepage
• Keyboard-Driven — Vim-style navigation, no mouse needed
• Non-Blocking — Install/uninstall/upgrade run in the background
• Single Binary — No runtime dependencies beyond winget itself

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11
• winget 1.4+ installed
• A terminal with Unicode support (Windows Terminal recommended)

Installation

From source

git clone https://github.com/shanselman/winget-tui.git
cd winget-tui
cargo build --release

The binary will be at target\release\winget-tui.exe.

Usage

winget-tui

Keybindings

Key	Action
↑ / k	Move up
↓ / j	Move down
PgUp / PgDn	Jump 20 items
Home / End	Jump to first / last
Tab	Cycle views (Search → Installed → Upgrades)
/ or s	Focus search input
Enter	Submit search / show details
f	Cycle source filter (All → winget → msstore)
r	Refresh current view
i	Install selected package
u	Upgrade selected package
x	Uninstall selected package
?	Toggle help overlay
q / Esc	Quit / close dialog
Ctrl+C	Quit

Mouse Support

• Click on tabs to switch views (Search / Installed / Upgrades)
• Click on the filter bar to cycle source filters
• Click on the search bar to start typing a search
• Click on a package row to select it and load details
• Scroll wheel over the package list to navigate up/down
• Right-click a package to select and load its details
• Click & drag the scrollbar to scrub through the list

Views

• Installed (default) — Lists all packages installed on your system
• Search — Search the winget repository for new packages
• Upgrades — Shows packages with available updates

Architecture

winget-tui
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs          # Entry point, terminal setup/teardown
│   ├── app.rs           # App state, message passing, async coordination
│   ├── backend.rs       # WingetBackend trait (abstraction layer)
│   ├── cli_backend.rs   # CLI implementation (shells out to winget.exe)
│   ├── handler.rs       # Keyboard and mouse input handling
│   ├── models.rs        # Data types (Package, Source, Operation, etc.)
│   └── ui.rs            # Ratatui rendering (all UI components)
└── Cargo.toml

The backend is behind a trait (WingetBackend) to allow future implementations (e.g., COM API for better performance).

License

MIT