Interface gallery for mods

See the interface elements a Claude Code mod can draw, such as text, buttons, fields, Markdown, code, and diffs, with sample code and terminal screenshots.

A mod draws its interface from elements: text, boxes, buttons, fields, and a few that format content for you. The samples here show the code that draws an element, and most come with a screenshot of the result in a terminal pane, so you can pick an element by how it looks.

To learn how drawing works, start with Draw in the interface. For the main props and which apps draw each element, see the elements reference. The type declarations list every prop.

Try a sample

The samples on this page are snippets, not whole mods. Each one is the code for one element and anything nested inside it.

To see a sample in your own terminal, create the small mod in these steps and paste the sample into it. The mod adds a /gallery command that opens a pane and draws the sample there. A pane is a sidebar beside the transcript in a wide fullscreen terminal, or a framed region above the prompt otherwise.

{
"name": "gallery",
"version": "0.1.0",
"description": "Opens a pane that draws one sample",
"author": { "name": "Your Name" }
}

{
"modules": ["./register.js"]
}

// Stands in for your own callback in the samples that take one
const noop = () => {}
// The Select sample keeps its choice here
let picked = 'md'

// The Raster sample packs its cells with this function
const DEFAULT_COLOR = 0x01000000
function cellsOf(rows) {
const numbers = rows.flat().flatMap(([char, color]) => [char.codePointAt(0), color, DEFAULT_COLOR])
return new Uint8Array(Uint32Array.from(numbers).buffer).toBase64()
}

export function register(on) {
on('session.start', async ($, e, next) => {
await $.command.register({ name: 'gallery', description: 'Open the sample pane' })
return next(e)
})

on('command.run', { command: 'gallery' }, async ($) => {
await $.ui.open({ id: 'gallery', focus: true, closeOnEscape: true })
return {}
})

on('ui.render', { component: 'Pane' }, async ($, e, next) => {
if (e.requestId !== 'gallery') return next(e)
const { Box, Text, Button, Input, Select, Link, Markdown, Code, Raster, Svg } = $.ui.resolve(e)
// Replace the element after return with a sample
return Text({ children: ['Plain text'] })
})
}

claude --plugin-dir ./gallery

Pick an element

The samples are grouped by what you want to put on screen:

• Show text: Text, Markdown, and Link
• Show code and changes: Code
• Arrange elements: Box
• Take input: Button, Input, and Select
• Draw pictures: Raster, Svg, Image, and Client

Show text

Three elements put words on screen: Text for your own styling, Markdown for content that's already formatted, and Link for a URL.

Text

Text draws a string with the styles you give it. This sample shows one line for each style:

Box({
  flexDirection: 'column',
  children: [
    Text({ children: ['Plain text'] }),
    Text({ bold: true, children: ['bold'] }),
    Text({ italic: true, children: ['italic'] }),
    Text({ underline: true, children: ['underline'] }),
    Text({ strikethrough: true, children: ['strikethrough'] }),
    Text({ dimColor: true, children: ['dimColor'] }),
    Text({ inverse: true, children: ['inverse'] }),
    Text({ color: 'red', children: ["color: 'red'"] }),
    Text({ backgroundColor: 'blue', children: ["backgroundColor: 'blue'"] }),
  ],
})

dimColor draws the text in gray. backgroundColor fills only as wide as the text.

Markdown

Markdown formats text the way Claude's replies are formatted. Pass the content in text, not in children:

Markdown({
  text: '## Release notes\n\nThis build has **two** fixes and one `flag`:\n\n- Faster start\n- Fewer prompts\n\n> Quoted text',
})

A heading draws in bold without its # marks. Inline code draws in color without its backticks. A quote draws in italics with a bar on its left.

Link

Link draws a label followed by its URL:

Link({ href: 'https://code.claude.com/docs', label: 'Claude Code docs' })

The terminal draws the URL as text after the label. Whether a click opens it depends on the user's terminal.

Show code and changes

Code draws source text with Claude Code's own syntax colors, or a diff.

Code

Name the language, or pass a path for Claude Code to infer it from. With startLine, the lines are numbered from that number:

Code({
  language: 'javascript',
  startLine: 1,
  source: "const name = 'mods'\nconsole.log('hello ' + name)",
})

The colors come from the user's theme.

Code as a diff

With format: 'diff', source is one or more unified diff hunks:

Code({
  format: 'diff',
  source: '@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@\n # Mods\n-A mod is a plugin.\n+A mod is a plugin that runs code.\n Read on.',
})

Claude Code draws line numbers in place of the @@ line. Where a removed line and an added line are alike, the words that changed get a stronger shade.

Arrange elements

Box

Box lays out what's inside it in a row or a column, and can draw a border. This sample puts a row of words above a bordered box:

Box({
  flexDirection: 'column',
  gap: 1,
  children: [
    Box({
      flexDirection: 'row',
      columnGap: 4,
      children: [Text({ children: ['a row'] }), Text({ children: ['of three'] }), Text({ children: ['items'] })],
    }),
    Box({
      borderStyle: 'round',
      paddingX: 1,
      children: [Text({ children: ["borderStyle: 'round'"] })],
    }),
  ],
})

The border stretches to the width of the pane.

Take input

Button, Input, and Select are controls: the user moves between them with Tab and uses the one that has the focus. Keyboard focus and hotkeys covers which keys reach them.

Opening a pane with focus: true gives the pane keyboard focus. Typed letters reach an Input once it has the focus, so add autoFocus: true to a field that should take typing as soon as the pane opens.

Button

A button runs onPress. This sample shows the default form, a plain button with a hotkey, and a dim one:

Box({
  flexDirection: 'column',
  children: [
    Button({ key: 'save', label: 'Save', onPress: noop }),
    Button({ key: 'next', label: 'Next', hotkey: 'n', plain: true, onPress: noop }),
    Button({ key: 'skip', label: 'Skip', dimColor: true, onPress: noop }),
  ],
})

A button that has the focus draws in inverse video. Here the user has pressed Tab twice:

Input

An Input is a one-line text field that runs onSubmit when the user presses Enter:

Input({
  key: 'title',
  label: 'Title',
  placeholder: 'Type a title and press Enter',
  value: '',
  submitLabel: 'save',
  onSubmit: noop,
})

Without the focus, the field shows its label and its placeholder:

With the focus, the label turns bold, a cursor appears, and the submitLabel shows after ⏎:

Typing replaces the placeholder:

Select

A Select lets the user pick one of several options, and runs onSelect with the option's value:

Select({
  key: 'format',
  label: 'Format',
  value: picked,
  options: [
    { value: 'md', label: 'Markdown' },
    { value: 'html', label: 'HTML' },
    { value: 'txt', label: 'Plain text' },
  ],
  onSelect: (value) => {
    picked = value
  },
})

Closed, it shows its label and the current option:

Open, it lists its options and marks one:

After the user picks an option, the list closes:

Draw pictures

Raster

A Raster is a grid of colored character cells, for a heat map, a sparkline, or a game board. The terminal draws it. This sample uses the cellsOf function in the starter module, which packs the cells into the string a Raster takes. Draw a grid of colored cells explains it:

Raster({
  key: 'grid',
  columns: 3,
  rows: 2,
  cells: cellsOf([
    [['█', 0x2e7d32], ['█', 0xf9a825], ['█', 0xc62828]],
    [['█', 0x2e7d32], ['█', 0x2e7d32], ['█', 0xf9a825]],
  ]),
})

A Raster rounds each color to a smaller palette, so 0x2e7d32 draws as #337733.

Svg

An Svg draws an SVG document in the Desktop app:

Svg({
  alt: 'Three bars of rising height',
  width: 120,
  height: 60,
  source:
    '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 120 60"><rect x="10" y="40" width="20" height="20" fill="#2e7d32"/><rect x="50" y="25" width="20" height="35" fill="#f9a825"/><rect x="90" y="5" width="20" height="55" fill="#c62828"/></svg>',
})

In the terminal, a pane that returns only an Svg opens empty. To draw something else there, check e.surface and return a different tree.

Image and Client

Two more elements have no sample here. Image draws a PNG or raw pixels in the terminal. Client is a region that a second file of yours draws, for animation and pointer input. The elements reference lists their props.

Unless Claude Code detects that the terminal draws kitty graphics protocol images with Unicode placeholders, the user sees an Image's alt text, dimmed, in place of the picture. Write alt text that stands on its own. Detection runs at startup: it succeeds in kitty 0.28 or later and in Ghostty, once the terminal answers Claude Code's graphics query, and fails in these cases:

• Other terminals: any terminal that isn't one of those two, or that doesn't answer the query.
• tmux and screen: a session running inside tmux or screen, in any terminal, kitty and Ghostty included.
• Background sessions: every background session, whatever terminal it's attached from.

If your mod's users see the dimmed text in a terminal that does draw those placeholder images, they can set CLAUDE_CODE_FORCE_TERMINAL_IMAGES to 1, which skips detection. Inside tmux or screen that doesn't help: the alt text goes away, and Claude Code sends the picture without wrapping it for tmux or screen passthrough.

See where a mod can draw

The samples all draw in a pane. A mod can also draw in other places, and call Claude Code to show something for it:

• Pane and band: Pick where to draw
• Claude Code's own rows, such as the spinner: Change what Claude Code already draws
• Toast, status line, and log line: Show something without starting a turn
• Question dialog: Hold a tool call until the user decides

Next steps

• Draw in the interface: build a pane with tabs, step by step
• Test a drawing: press your buttons from a test
• Elements reference: each element's main props and the apps that draw it