Canvas TUI Toolkit

Start here when using terminal canvases. This skill covers the overall workflow, canvas types, and IPC communication.

Example Prompts

Try asking Claude things like:

Calendar:

• "Schedule a meeting with the team next week"
• "Find a time when Alice and Bob are both free"

Document:

• "Draft an email to the sales team about the new feature"
• "Help me edit this document - let me select what to change"

Flight:

• "Find flights from SFO to Denver next Friday"
• "Book me a window seat on the morning flight"

Overview

Canvas provides interactive terminal displays (TUIs) that can be spawned and controlled via the OpenCode tools. Each canvas type supports multiple scenarios for different interaction modes.

Available Canvas Types

OpenCode Tools

canvas_spawn

Spawn a canvas in a tmux split pane.

canvas_spawn({
  kind: "calendar",
  scenario: "meeting-picker",
  config: JSON.stringify({
    calendars: [
      { name: "Alice", color: "blue", events: [...] },
      { name: "Bob", color: "green", events: [...] }
    ],
    slotGranularity: 30
  })
})
// Returns: { success: true, id: "calendar-1234567890-abc123", ... }

canvas_update

Send updated config to a running canvas.

canvas_update({
  id: "calendar-1234567890-abc123",
  config: JSON.stringify({ events: [...] })
})

canvas_selection

Get text selection from a document canvas.

canvas_selection({ id: "document-1234567890-abc123" })
// Returns: { success: true, selection: { selectedText: "...", startOffset: 0, endOffset: 10 } }

canvas_content

Get full content from a document canvas.

canvas_content({ id: "document-1234567890-abc123" })
// Returns: { success: true, content: { content: "...", cursorPosition: 0 } }

canvas_close

Close a running canvas.

canvas_close({ id: "calendar-1234567890-abc123" })

IPC Communication

Interactive canvases communicate via Unix domain sockets.

Canvas -> Controller:

{ type: "ready", scenario }        // Canvas is ready
{ type: "selected", data }         // User made a selection
{ type: "cancelled", reason? }     // User cancelled
{ type: "error", message }         // Error occurred

Controller -> Canvas:

{ type: "update", config }  // Update canvas configuration
{ type: "close" }           // Request canvas to close
{ type: "ping" }            // Health check

Requirements

• tmux: Canvas spawning requires a tmux session
• Terminal with mouse support: For click-based interactions
• Bun: Runtime for executing canvas commands

Skills Reference