TUI Guide

Using the interactive Terminal UI for registry exploration and artifact management

The ORAS .NET CLI v0.3.0 includes a powerful terminal user interface (TUI) with elegant visual design, context menus, in-memory caching, and fully interactive workflows for exploring container registries and managing artifacts.

Launching the TUI 

# Launch TUI to main dashboard (just run oras with no arguments)
oras

# Launch directly to registry browser
oras --registry ghcr.io

# Browse a specific repository
oras --registry ghcr.io --repository myorg/myrepo

Features

Dashboard View

  • Hand-crafted Unicode block art “ORAS” banner with brand colors (O=#D04485 pink, R=#5EBAB4 teal, A=#FCFCFD white, S=#CCF575 lime)
  • Subtitle: “OCI Registry As Storage v{version} • Interactive Terminal UI”
  • Credential store status with Unicode indicators (● Authenticated, ○ No credentials) for all registries (auths, credHelpers, and credsStore)
  • Artifact operations accessible via a dedicated “Artifacts” sub-menu
  • In-memory caching with “(cached)” indicators for fast repeat operations
  • UTF-8 output encoding ensures correct rendering on all platforms

Registry Browser

  • Hierarchical repository navigation with live search
  • Tag and manifest exploration
  • Context menu on repository selection:
    • Browse Tags
    • Copy entire repository
    • Backup repository
  • Artifact metadata inspection
  • Catalog-less registries: When a registry doesn’t support the catalog API (e.g., ghcr.io), the browser shows a clear message. Use “Enter repository name…” to type a repository path directly.

Tag Context Menu

  • Selecting a tag shows:
    • Inspect Manifest
    • Pull to directory
    • Copy to…
    • Backup to local
    • Tag with…
    • Delete
    • ─── (non-selectable separator)
    • Back

Direct Repository Browse

  • Jump straight to a repository’s tags without browsing the catalog
  • Supports registries that don’t have a catalog API
  • Select “Browse Repository Tags” on the dashboard or use oras --repository <name>

Copy Artifact

  • Copy OCI artifacts between registries with live progress tracking and visual progress bars
  • Supports separate source and destination credentials
  • Optional: Include referrers (signatures, attestations, SBOMs) with --recursive
  • Fully interactive TUI workflow
  • Available from TUI dashboard or CLI: oras copy <source> <destination>

Backup Artifact

  • Save registry artifacts to a local OCI layout directory or tar archive with live progress
  • Perfect for disaster recovery, air-gapped environments, and offline workflows
  • Supports --recursive to backup entire artifact graphs
  • Fully interactive TUI workflow with summary panel
  • Available from TUI dashboard or CLI: oras backup <reference> --output <path>

Restore Artifact

  • Push artifacts from a local backup to any OCI-compliant registry with live progress tracking
  • Supports restoring from both OCI layout directories and tar archives
  • Can restore to a different registry or repository than the original
  • Fully interactive TUI workflow
  • Available from TUI dashboard or CLI: oras restore <path> <destination>

In-Memory Caching

  • Frequently accessed registries, repositories, and manifests are cached with TTL
  • “(cached)” indicator shown in lists for cached entries
  • “Refresh” options available in context menus to invalidate cache
  • Dramatically faster navigation on repeat visits

Artifacts Sub-Menu

  • Artifact operations are grouped under a dedicated “Artifacts” menu entry:
    • Push Artifact
    • Pull Artifact
    • Copy Artifact
    • Tag Artifact
    • Backup Artifact
    • Restore Artifact
    • ─── (non-selectable separator)
    • Back

Cyclic Navigation

  • All menus wrap around: pressing ↓ from the last item moves to the first item, and ↑ from the first item moves to the last
  • Non-selectable separators (───) visually group menu items (e.g., before Quit or Back) using AddChoiceGroup

Keyboard Navigation

  • Arrow keys: Navigate lists and trees (with cyclic wrapping)
  • Enter: Select item / perform action
  • Esc: Go back / cancel
  • Ctrl+C: Exit application
  • F5: Refresh current view

Unicode Indicators

Status symbols use Unicode characters for rich terminal rendering:

  • ✔ (green) — Success, completed operations
  • ✗ (red) — Errors, failed operations
  • ℹ (cyan) — Informational messages
  • ⚠ (yellow) — Warnings, destructive actions

Tips

  • Use --debug flag for verbose logging: oras --debug
  • Use --no-tty to force non-interactive mode
  • The TUI respects your Docker credentials automatically

For more details on individual commands, see the Command Reference.