--- title: How TUI Navigation Works on the Inside | daily.dev description: A hands-on walkthrough of how TUI (terminal user interface) navigation works internally, written in Go. Covers setting the terminal to raw mode using... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-tui-navigation-works-on-the-inside-emytawesz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How TUI Navigation Works on the Inside | daily.dev og:description: A hands-on walkthrough of how TUI (terminal user interface) navigation works internally, written in Go. Covers setting the terminal to raw mode using... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-tui-navigation-works-on-the-inside-emytawesz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/emytAweSz.png og:image:alt: How TUI Navigation Works on the Inside og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How TUI Navigation Works on the Inside **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A hands-on walkthrough of how TUI (terminal user interface) navigation works internally, written in Go. Covers setting the terminal to raw mode using golang.org/x/term to capture individual keystrokes, rendering menu options using ANSI escape sequences, implementing a cursor with bracket notation, and handling horizontal navigation with vim-style hjkl keybindings. Explains key mechanics like carriage return for in-place redraw, line-clearing escape sequences, and bounds-checked cursor movement — all without relying on a TUI framework. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I read individual keystrokes in Go without waiting for Enter to be pressed? Put the terminal into raw mode using term.MakeRaw from golang.org/x/term, passing os.Stdin.Fd() (usually 0 on Unix systems). This disables the terminal's normal line buffering so each keypress is sent immediately. Read a single byte at a time into a 1-byte slice with os.Stdin.Read, and restore the original terminal state with term.Restore when done, typically via defer. _daily.dev surfaces Go terminal-handling techniques for developers building their own TUI tools._ ### How do I redraw a terminal menu in place instead of printing a new line every time the cursor moves? Use the carriage return escape character \r to move the cursor back to the start of the line before reprinting, and \033[K to clear from the cursor to the end of the line so leftover characters from a shorter previous render don't remain visible. Terminals only write forward from the current position, so without these two steps every update prints a new line instead of overwriting the old one. _developers refining terminal rendering logic can find more Go ANSI escape sequence tricks on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [TUIgo: A terminal UI framework for Go that refuses to be a React port](https://daily.dev/posts/tuigo-a-terminal-ui-framework-for-go-that-refuses-to-be-a-react-port-t3aeslbbk) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The text mode lie: why modern TUIs are a nightmare for accessibility](https://daily.dev/posts/the-text-mode-lie-why-modern-tuis-are-a-nightmare-for-accessibility-dajyzn838) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I Made a Terminal Pager](https://daily.dev/posts/i-made-a-terminal-pager-lytkbuklb) · Hacker News · 21 upvotes · 0 comments - [ZeroTUI Code Editor: Build Real Terminal Software, Not Just Terminal Screens](https://daily.dev/posts/zerotui-code-editor-build-real-terminal-software-not-just-terminal-screens-sahkt5wif) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#golang](https://daily.dev/tags/golang), [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-tui-navigation-works-on-the-inside-emytawesz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How TUI Navigation Works on the Inside","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-tui-navigation-works-on-the-inside-emytawesz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-tui-navigation-works-on-the-inside-emytawesz"},"datePublished":"2026-07-21T07:35:26.757Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T09:09:37.161Z","description":"A hands-on walkthrough of how TUI (terminal user interface) navigation works internally, written in Go. 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This disables the terminal's normal line buffering so each keypress is sent immediately. Read a single byte at a time into a 1-byte slice with os.Stdin.Read, and restore the original terminal state with term.Restore when done, typically via defer. daily.dev surfaces Go terminal-handling techniques for developers building their own TUI tools."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I redraw a terminal menu in place instead of printing a new line every time the cursor moves?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use the carriage return escape character \\r to move the cursor back to the start of the line before reprinting, and \\033[K to clear from the cursor to the end of the line so leftover characters from a shorter previous render don't remain visible. Terminals only write forward from the current position, so without these two steps every update prints a new line instead of overwriting the old one. developers refining terminal rendering logic can find more Go ANSI escape sequence tricks on daily.dev."}}]} ```