rich-terminal-output

AutumnsGrove's avatarfrom AutumnsGrove

Create beautiful terminal output with Rich library including tables, progress bars, panels, and syntax highlighting. Use when building CLI applications or enhancing terminal output in Python.

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[Developer Tools]

When & Why to Use This Skill

The Rich Terminal Output skill empowers Python developers to transform standard terminal text into visually rich, structured, and interactive command-line interfaces. By leveraging the Rich library, it provides advanced formatting capabilities including tables, progress bars, syntax highlighting, and beautiful error tracebacks, making CLI applications more professional and debugging significantly more efficient.

Use Cases

  • CLI Application Development: Create professional-grade command-line tools with organized tables, status panels, and styled text for better user interaction.
  • Real-time Progress Tracking: Implement visual progress bars and spinners to provide clear feedback during long-running data migrations or computational tasks.
  • Enhanced Debugging and Logging: Utilize pretty-printed Python objects and color-coded logs to quickly identify issues and understand complex data structures.
  • Automated Documentation and Reports: Generate syntax-highlighted code snippets and structured reports directly within the terminal for quick reference.
namerich-terminal-output
descriptionCreate beautiful terminal output with Rich library including tables, progress bars, panels, and syntax highlighting. Use when building CLI applications or enhancing terminal output in Python.

Rich Terminal Output Skill

When to Activate

Activate this skill when:

  • Building CLI applications
  • Displaying structured data (tables)
  • Showing progress for long operations
  • Creating error/status panels
  • Pretty-printing objects for debugging
  • Enhancing logging output

Installation

uv add rich

# Quick test
python -c "from rich import print; print('[bold green]Rich working![/]')"

Core Concepts

Console Object

from rich.console import Console

console = Console()

# Basic output
console.print("Hello, World!")

# Styled output
console.print("[bold red]Error:[/] Something went wrong")
console.print("[green]Success![/] Operation completed")

Markup Syntax

"[bold]Bold[/]"
"[italic]Italic[/]"
"[red]Red text[/]"
"[blue on white]Blue on white background[/]"
"[bold red]Combined styles[/]"
"[link=https://example.com]Click here[/]"

Drop-in Print Replacement

from rich import print

print("[bold cyan]Styled text[/]")
print({"key": "value"})  # Auto-pretty-prints

Tables

from rich.console import Console
from rich.table import Table

console = Console()

table = Table(title="User List")

table.add_column("ID", style="cyan", justify="right")
table.add_column("Name", style="magenta")
table.add_column("Email", style="green")
table.add_column("Status", justify="center")

table.add_row("1", "Alice", "alice@example.com", "✓ Active")
table.add_row("2", "Bob", "bob@example.com", "✓ Active")
table.add_row("3", "Charlie", "charlie@example.com", "✗ Inactive")

console.print(table)

Panels

from rich.console import Console
from rich.panel import Panel

console = Console()

# Simple panel
console.print(Panel("Operation completed!"))

# Styled panel
console.print(Panel(
    "[green]All tests passed![/]\n\n"
    "Total: 42 tests\n"
    "Time: 3.2s",
    title="Test Results",
    border_style="green"
))

# Error panel
console.print(Panel(
    "[red]Connection refused[/]\n\n"
    "Host: localhost:5432",
    title="[bold red]Error[/]",
    border_style="red"
))

Progress Bars

Simple Progress

from rich.progress import track
import time

for item in track(range(100), description="Processing..."):
    time.sleep(0.01)

Multiple Tasks

from rich.progress import Progress

with Progress() as progress:
    task1 = progress.add_task("[red]Downloading...", total=100)
    task2 = progress.add_task("[green]Processing...", total=100)

    while not progress.finished:
        progress.update(task1, advance=0.9)
        progress.update(task2, advance=0.6)
        time.sleep(0.02)

Syntax Highlighting

from rich.console import Console
from rich.syntax import Syntax

console = Console()

code = '''
def hello():
    print("Hello, World!")
'''

syntax = Syntax(code, "python", theme="monokai", line_numbers=True)
console.print(syntax)

Tree Displays

from rich.console import Console
from rich.tree import Tree

console = Console()

tree = Tree("[bold blue]MyProject/[/]")
src = tree.add("[bold]src/[/]")
src.add("main.py")
src.add("config.py")

tests = tree.add("[bold]tests/[/]")
tests.add("test_main.py")

console.print(tree)

Logging Integration

import logging
from rich.logging import RichHandler

logging.basicConfig(
    level=logging.INFO,
    format="%(message)s",
    handlers=[RichHandler(rich_tracebacks=True)]
)

logger = logging.getLogger("myapp")
logger.info("Application started")
logger.error("Connection failed")

Pretty Tracebacks

from rich.traceback import install

# Call once at startup
install(show_locals=True)

# All exceptions now have beautiful tracebacks

Common Pitfalls

Reuse Console Instance

# ❌ Bad
def show(msg):
    Console().print(msg)  # Creates new instance each time

# ✅ Good
console = Console()
def show(msg):
    console.print(msg)

Escape User Input

from rich.markup import escape

username = "user[admin]"

# ❌ Bad - brackets break markup
console.print(f"[blue]{username}[/]")

# ✅ Good
console.print(f"[blue]{escape(username)}[/]")

Handle Non-TTY

import sys

console = Console(force_terminal=sys.stdout.isatty())

CLI Application Pattern

import click
from rich.console import Console
from rich.panel import Panel

console = Console()

@click.command()
@click.argument('filename')
def process(filename):
    console.print(f"[bold]Processing:[/] {filename}")

    with console.status("[bold green]Working..."):
        result = do_work(filename)

    if result.success:
        console.print(Panel(
            f"[green]Processed {result.count} items[/]",
            title="Success"
        ))
    else:
        console.print(f"[red]Error:[/] {result.error}")

When NOT to Use Rich

  • Non-interactive scripts (output piped)
  • Server-side logging
  • Performance-critical loops
  • Minimal dependency requirements

See AgentUsage/rich_formatting.md for complete documentation including:

  • Advanced table customization
  • Spinner and status displays
  • Console recording
  • Integration patterns