TUIs are all the rage right now, and if you've been spending more time in the terminal (especially with tools like Claude Code), you'll love this. I built a full terminal UI for the Spring Initializr so you never have to leave the command line to bootstrap a Spring Boot project.

In this video, I walk you through a Terminal User Interface (TUI) I built in Java using the new Tambu UI framework and the Spring Initializr API. You'll see how I went from seeing a tweet about a Java TUI framework to building a fully functional tool that creates Spring Boot projects, remembers your preferences, lets you explore generated code, opens your IDE, and even runs post-generation hooks like launching Claude Code. All from the terminal.

- How to build a terminal user interface (TUI) in Java using the Tambu UI framework
- How to interact with the Spring Initializr API to generate projects programmatically
- Setting up remembered preferences, favorites, fuzzy search, and category filtering for dependencies
- Creating GraalVM native images for fast startup and low memory usage
- Configuring post-generation hooks to automatically open IDEs and run commands like Claude Code

0:00 - Intro - TUIs Are All the Rage
0:45 - The Tweet That Started It All - Tambu UI
1:30 - Tambu UI Blog Post Overview
2:15 - My Workflow Problem with Spring Initializr
3:30 - GitHub Repository Overview
4:15 - Live Demo - Running the TUI
5:00 - Project Configuration & Remembered Preferences
6:00 - Dependency Selection, Fuzzy Search & Favorites
7:15 - Category Filtering
7:45 - Exploring the Generated Project
8:30 - Generating, Opening IDE & Post-Generation Hooks
9:45 - Verifying the Project in IntelliJ
10:30 - GraalVM Native Image & GitHub Actions Releases
11:30 - Future Plans - Bookmarks & Templates
12:15 - Wrap Up & Happy Coding


🔗 Spring Initializr TUI GitHub Repository: https://github.com/danvega/spring-initializr-tui
🌐 Spring Initializr: https://start.spring.io
📖 Tambu UI Framework: https://tamboui.dev/


👋🏻Connect with me:
Website: https://www.danvega.dev
Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealdanvega
Github: https://github.com/danvega
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danvega
Newsletter: https://www.danvega.dev/newsletter

SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL: http://bit.ly/2re4GH0 ❤️

Dan Vega

A developer built a terminal UI (TUI) for Spring Initializr using Java and the newly announced Tamboo UI framework. The tool replicates the Spring Initializr web experience in the terminal, with features like fuzzy dependency search, favorites, project exploration, and post-generation hooks that can automatically open an IDE (like IntelliJ) and launch Claude Code in the new project directory. The native executable is built with GraalVM for fast startup and low memory usage, and binaries for macOS, Windows, and Linux are distributed via GitHub releases.

Building a Terminal UI for Spring Initializr with Java