---
title: Building a Terminal UI for the Web
date: 2025-12-30
description: Designing a terminal-style web interface with Astro and React
---
# Building a Terminal UI for the Web
Building a terminal-style interface in the browser is an exercise in balancing nostalgia with modern web constraints. The goal was to deliver a familiar, keyboard-driven experience without sacrificing performance, accessibility and SEO.
## Why a Terminal UI?
- **Developer affinity**: Terminal interfaces are immediately recognisable and intuitive to technical users
- **Focus**: Minimal UI reduces visual noise and encourages intent-driven interaction
## Technical Approach
The site is built with Astro for static rendering and routing, with React used selectively for the interactive terminal layer. This provides:
1. Fast initial render with minimal JavaScript
2. Client-side interactivity only where required
3. Crawlable, SEO-friendly pages
4. Clean, predictable URLs that map to terminal commands
Future posts will cover the command system, routing model, and content rendering in more detail.