TUI and CLI option coverage

Launching scat tui only opens read-only catalog clients. No indexing, service, or vc process starts on launch. F4 opens the searchable action palette; F1 lists contextual actions. Read-only browsing needs no write access to the published catalog (the optional host cache is separate).

Alt+i opens catalog information; Alt+a opens full audit findings. Edit the CLI arguments and press Enter to run. PageUp/PageDown scroll findings. F3 copies output; Ctrl+S saves to a new absolute local file. Audit exit 0 means pass, 1 means warnings with --strict, and 2 means errors. Findings remain visible for nonzero exits. Without embeddings, ordinary checks still work; embedding checks follow the CLI’s skipped-check reporting.

Alt+b and Alt+v open explicit administration dialogs. Enter validates arguments and previews the executable, target paths and argument vector. F5 executes the exact preview only if the command has not changed. Build initially defaults to --dry-run; remove it deliberately to publish. These actions run the existing CLI in a child with the terminal restored, showing progress and errors. Ctrl+C interrupts the child; press Enter after completion to return. Terminal raw mode, mouse capture and bracketed paste are restored even when execution fails. There is no privilege escalation. Build uses existing locks, checkpoints, incremental scanning and atomic publication. Restart the TUI after publication to refresh its read connections. Existing nightly cron builds remain supported and are still the recommended shared-catalog deployment.

Arguments use shell-style quoting solely to split words; no shell executes inputs. For example vc -- 'path with spaces' '--literal-flag' preserves each argument. The preview includes the configured vc executable (or PATH lookup). Permissions and passthrough behavior are the same as scat vc.

Coverage matrix

All command arguments below are accepted in the indicated CLI-argument editor. Global overrides inside editors are rejected to retain the active source paths.

Table-form CLI output maps to native TUI views. Structured output is generated in the workflow editor; build/vc output appears in the suspended terminal.

Terminal modes and remote sessions

scat tui --terminal-info reports resolved modes, effective locale, TERM, interactive stdin/stdout, SSH and known multiplexer hints without opening a catalog or changing the terminal. These are environment hints, not capability probes; no cursor-position or clipboard query is sent. Unknown terminal, clipboard and forwarding capabilities remain unverified. Detection never uses the operating system release.

Use --glyphs auto|unicode|ascii (SCAT_TUI_GLYPHS) and --colors auto|full|reduced|mono (SCAT_TUI_COLORS) to override defaults, or set site-wide defaults in the config file:

tui:
  glyphs: ascii    # auto | unicode | ascii
  colors: reduced  # auto | full | reduced | mono

Priority is flag, then environment, then config file, then detection. An unknown config value is reported as an error rather than ignored. Flags override the corresponding environment setting. --no-color or nonempty NO_COLOR always selects monochrome, including when --colors full is set. The completed frame is converted consistently across syntax highlighting, charts, help, palettes, dialogs and status messages. Selection uses reverse video and focus retains bold borders; warnings/errors also have text labels. Reduced mode uses the basic eight ANSI colors. Small screens retain the existing active-pane/tab layout.

Auto glyphs uses the first nonempty value of LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG; a locale containing UTF-8 or UTF8 enables Unicode. Missing/other locales select ASCII conservatively. This cannot prove font support; use --glyphs ascii if borders or spinners look broken. ASCII converts borders, arrows, spinners and charts to single-cell printable characters. Other non-ASCII text is displayed as ? (underlying query/catalog/copy text is preserved). Input continues to use UTF-8 internally; legacy locale input bytes are not transcoded. Auto color uses full color for TERM=*256color* or COLORTERM=truecolor|24bit, otherwise the reduced palette. Explicit Unicode or full color can override these conservative guesses.

Both stdin and stdout must be terminals; unset TERM or TERM=dumb is rejected before fullscreen/raw-mode setup with guidance to use scat search. Redirected output never receives a broken fullscreen UI. --terminal-info works with redirection and dumb terminals.

SSH is inferred from SSH_CONNECTION/SSH_TTY, tmux from TMUX, and screen-compatible sessions from STY/TERM=screen*. These do not prove clipboard access. F3 sends a base64 OSC 52 clipboard request; successful writing only confirms that the request was sent. Over SSH it must reach the local terminal, whose permissions decide whether to accept it. tmux/screen may filter requests; forwarding depends on their version/configuration. Scat sends the standard OSC request and does not assume or force multiplexer passthrough.

For reliable native copying, press F2 to freeze redraws and release mouse capture, select text, then use your local terminal’s Copy shortcut (often Ctrl+Shift+C or Cmd+C). F2/Esc resumes. Native shortcuts vary by terminal; Ctrl+C inside the application exits. Paste with the terminal’s Paste shortcut (often Ctrl+Shift+V or Cmd+V); bracketed paste inserts normalized text into the search input rather than executing commands. External viewers suspend raw, mouse and bracketed-paste modes and restore them on return, including errors.