[go-fan] Go Module Review: lipgloss

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🐹 Go Fan Report: Lip Gloss

Lip Gloss is gh-aw's terminal styling powerhouse, bringing beautiful, declarative CSS-like styling to terminal output. This review examines how the project uses this fantastic library and identifies opportunities to leverage its full potential.

Module Overview

Lip Gloss is a declarative terminal styling library that takes an expressive, CSS-like approach to terminal rendering. It's the go-to solution for beautiful TUIs in the Go ecosystem, offering everything from basic text styling to complex table layouts.

Current Version: v1.1.1-0.20250319133953-166f707985bc (pre-release tracking v1.1.1)

Current Usage in gh-aw

Lip Gloss is used for all terminal styling and formatting across the project:

• Files: 2 Go files
• Import Count: 2 direct imports
• Primary Use Cases:
  • Console output formatting and error rendering (pkg/console/console.go)
  • MCP server inspection display (pkg/cli/mcp_inspect_mcp.go)

Key APIs Used

The project leverages core Lip Gloss features:

✅ Style Creation: lipgloss.NewStyle() with method chaining
✅ Colors: Hex color definitions (Dracula theme palette)
✅ Text Formatting: Bold, foreground/background colors
✅ Borders: RoundedBorder() for error boxes
✅ Manual Rendering: style.Render() with custom TTY detection

Usage Pattern Analysis

Console Package (pkg/console/console.go):

• 13 global style variables for different message types
• Manual TTY detection with applyStyle() helper
• Custom table implementation (~100 lines of code)
• Consistent Dracula color scheme (#FF5555, #50FA7B, #BD93F9, etc.)

MCP Inspect Package (pkg/cli/mcp_inspect_mcp.go):

• 4 global style variables for output formatting
• Reuses console package's table rendering
• Maintains visual consistency with shared color palette

Research Findings

Repository Health

• 🌟 Stars: 4.7k+ on GitHub
• 📦 Latest Stable: v1.1.0 (March 2025)
• 🚀 Latest Beta: v2.0.0-beta.3 (July 2025)
• 🔥 Active Development: Regular releases and improvements

Recent Updates (v1.1.0)

The v1.1.0 release brought major improvements to tables:

• Table Algorithm Overhaul: Smarter column width calculation
• Content Wrapping: Tables now wrap content by default
• New Border Styles: Markdown and ASCII borders added
• Style Ranges: Partial text styling within strings
• Tree Enhancements: Hidden children support

What's New in v2.0.0 Beta

Lip Gloss v2 is approaching release with significant architectural improvements:

• Deterministic Styles: Functional, pure approach (λipgloss!)
• Manual Color Downsampling: Writers for automatic color handling
• Intentional I/O Control: Better SSH/remote support
• Background Detection API: More control over adaptive colors
• Compat Package: Backward compatibility helpers

Best Practices from Maintainers

From the Lip Gloss documentation and community:

1. Use Sub-packages: Leverage lipgloss/table, lipgloss/list, lipgloss/tree
2. Adaptive Colors: Support both light and dark terminals
3. Layout Utilities: Use JoinHorizontal/JoinVertical for complex layouts
4. Style Inheritance: Build style hierarchies with Inherit()
5. Measure First: Use Width(), Height(), Size() for layout calculations

Improvement Opportunities

🏃 Quick Wins

1. Replace Custom Table Implementation

Current State: Console package has ~100 lines of custom table rendering code with manual column width calculation, padding, and separators.

Opportunity: Replace with github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss/table

Benefits:

• ✂️ Eliminate ~100 lines of custom code
• 🎯 Automatic column sizing and wrapping
• 🎨 Multiple border styles (Normal, Rounded, Markdown, ASCII)
• 📐 Better handling of Unicode and ANSI sequences
• 🔧 Less maintenance burden

Example Migration:

// Before: Custom implementation
table := console.RenderTable(console.TableConfig{
    Headers: []string{"Name", "Status"},
    Rows:    rows,
})

// After: Lip Gloss table package
import "github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss/table"

t := table.New().
    Border(lipgloss.NormalBorder()).
    Headers("Name", "Status").
    Rows(rows...)
fmt.Println(t)

Impact: High - Reduces code complexity and improves table rendering quality

---

2. Centralize Style Definitions

Current State: Style definitions scattered across console.go and mcp_inspect_mcp.go with hardcoded Dracula colors.

Opportunity: Create a shared pkg/styles/theme.go package

Benefits:

• 🎨 Single source of truth for colors and styles
• 🔄 Easy theme switching or customization
• 📝 Better documentation of color choices
• 🛠️ Simpler maintenance

Proposed Structure:

// pkg/styles/theme.go
package styles

import "github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss"

// Dracula theme colors
const (
    ColorError   = "#FF5555" // Red
    ColorWarning = "#FFB86C" // Orange
    ColorSuccess = "#50FA7B" // Green
    ColorInfo    = "#8BE9FD" // Cyan
    ColorPurple  = "#BD93F9"
    ColorComment = "#6272A4"
    ColorFG      = "#F8F8F2"
    ColorBG      = "#282A36"
)

// Reusable styles
var (
    Error   = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(lipgloss.Color(ColorError))
    Warning = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(lipgloss.Color(ColorWarning))
    Success = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(lipgloss.Color(ColorSuccess))
    Info    = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(lipgloss.Color(ColorInfo))
    // ...
)

Impact: Medium - Improves code organization and maintainability

---

3. Use AdaptiveColor for Better Terminal Support

Current State: Hardcoded Dracula (dark) theme colors only.

Opportunity: Support both light and dark terminal backgrounds.

Benefits:

• 🌓 Works well in both light and dark terminals
• 👥 Better accessibility for users with different preferences
• 🎯 Automatic adaptation based on terminal background

Example:

// Current
errorColor := lipgloss.Color("#FF5555")

// Adaptive
errorColor := lipgloss.AdaptiveColor{
    Light: "#D73737", // Darker red for light backgrounds
    Dark:  "#FF5555", // Bright red for dark backgrounds
}

Impact: Medium - Improves UX for users with different terminal themes

✨ Feature Opportunities

4. Leverage Layout Utilities for Complex Output

Opportunity: Use JoinHorizontal() and JoinVertical() for side-by-side displays.

Use Cases in gh-aw:

• Side-by-side tool comparisons in MCP inspect
• Multi-column workflow status displays
• Before/after comparisons in diff output

Example:

leftPanel := lipgloss.NewStyle().
    Width(40).
    Padding(1).
    Render("Panel 1 content...")

rightPanel := lipgloss.NewStyle().
    Width(40).
    Padding(1).
    Render("Panel 2 content...")

// Join panels side-by-side
combined := lipgloss.JoinHorizontal(lipgloss.Top, leftPanel, rightPanel)
fmt.Println(combined)

Impact: Low-Medium - Enables richer output layouts

---

5. Use List/Tree Packages for Hierarchical Data

Opportunity: Replace manual list formatting with lipgloss/list and lipgloss/tree.

Use Cases:

• MCP resource hierarchies → lipgloss/tree
• Tool listings with nested capabilities → lipgloss/list
• Workflow dependency trees → lipgloss/tree

Example:

import "github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss/tree"

t := tree.Root("MCP Server: my-server").
    Child("Tools").
    Child(
        tree.New().Root("Resources").
            Child("(redacted)").
            Child("(redacted)"),
    )
fmt.Println(t)

Impact: Medium - Better visual representation of hierarchical data

---

6. Explore v2 Features for SSH/Remote Support

Context: v2 provides better control over I/O for network scenarios.

Opportunity: If gh-aw ever supports remote execution or SSH, v2 would provide:

• Custom renderers per session
• Proper color profile detection per client
• Better handling of piped output

Impact: Low (future consideration) - Only relevant if remote execution is added

📐 Best Practice Alignment

7. Migrate to Writer-Based Rendering

Current State: Manual TTY detection with applyStyle() helper.

v2 Approach: Use lipgloss.Println(), lipgloss.Printf() for automatic handling.

Benefits:

• ✨ Cleaner code (no manual TTY checks)
• 🎯 Automatic color downsampling
• 📦 Built-in ANSI stripping for non-TTY

Migration Path: When v2.0.0 is stable, gradually migrate to writer-based API.

Impact: Low-Medium - Code simplification (future improvement)

---

8. Use Style Inheritance for Better Composition

Opportunity: Build style hierarchies instead of duplicating properties.

Example:

// Base message style
baseMessage := lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true)

// Variants inherit from base
errorStyle := baseMessage.Copy().Foreground(lipgloss.Color("#FF5555"))
warningStyle := baseMessage.Copy().Foreground(lipgloss.Color("#FFB86C"))
successStyle := baseMessage.Copy().Foreground(lipgloss.Color("#50FA7B"))

Impact: Low - Minor code improvement

🔧 General Improvements

9. Use Lipgloss Borders for Visual Consistency

Current: Custom table separators with | and - characters.

Opportunity: Use Lip Gloss border styles consistently across all styled output.

Benefits:

• 🎨 More polished appearance
• 🔄 Easy to switch between border styles
• 📐 Proper Unicode handling

Impact: Low - Visual polish

---

10. Make Theme Configurable

Opportunity: Allow users to customize colors via environment variable or config.

Example:

// Support THEME environment variable
theme := os.Getenv("GH_AW_THEME")
if theme == "light" {
    // Use light theme colors
} else {
    // Use dark theme colors (default)
}

Impact: Low - Nice-to-have for power users

Recommendations

🎯 Priority 1: Replace Custom Table Implementation

Effort: Medium (2-4 hours)
Impact: High

This is the biggest win. Migrating to lipgloss/table will:

• Reduce code complexity significantly
• Improve table rendering quality
• Enable new features (Markdown tables, wrapping, etc.)

Action Items:

1. Import github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss/table
2. Replace console.RenderTable() with table package
3. Update all call sites in console and MCP inspect
4. Add tests for table rendering

---

🎯 Priority 2: Centralize Style Definitions

Effort: Low (1-2 hours)
Impact: Medium

Create a shared styles package to consolidate all style definitions.

Action Items:

1. Create pkg/styles/theme.go
2. Extract color constants
3. Move all style definitions
4. Update imports in console and MCP packages

---

🎯 Priority 3: Add AdaptiveColor Support

Effort: Low-Medium (2-3 hours)
Impact: Medium

Make gh-aw work well in both light and dark terminals.

Action Items:

1. Define adaptive color palette
2. Update style definitions to use AdaptiveColor
3. Test in both light and dark terminals

---

🔮 Future Considerations

When v2.0.0 is stable:

• Evaluate migration to v2 APIs
• Consider writer-based rendering
• Assess benefits of deterministic styles

Next Steps

1. Prototype: Create a branch with table package integration
2. Benchmark: Measure performance impact (should be neutral or better)
3. Test: Verify table rendering in various terminals
4. Refactor: Centralize styles once table migration is complete
5. Document: Update development docs with styling guidelines

Conclusion

Lip Gloss is already well-utilized in gh-aw for terminal styling, but there's significant opportunity to leverage its more advanced features. The custom table implementation is the biggest candidate for replacement, offering immediate code reduction and improved functionality. Centralizing styles and adding adaptive color support would further improve maintainability and user experience.

The Lip Gloss ecosystem continues to evolve with v2 on the horizon, bringing even more powerful features for building beautiful terminal UIs. Keeping an eye on v2's progress will help gh-aw stay at the cutting edge of terminal UX.

---

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Module summary saved to: specs/mods/lipgloss.md

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