A fullscreen terminal typing test inspired by Monkeytype. It has time, word, and quote modes, inline corrections, and a WPM graph.
Watch the typing demo as MP4. It shows a Ghostty shell launch, a corrected typo, and a skipped word. The typing footage is rendered from the native executable's terminal output and sped up for the preview.
See recording in an Amp orb for the development and demo environment.
Download a standalone executable from GitHub Releases for Linux, macOS, or Windows (x64 or ARM64). Unpack it, then run monkeytype-tui or monkeytype-tui.exe in an interactive terminal. The default test is English, time 30, with punctuation and numbers off.
To run from source, install Node.js 20.10+ and pnpm:
cd monkeytype-tui
pnpm start
pnpm start --words 50
pnpm start --time 30
pnpm start --mode quote --quote-length medium
pnpm start --text "one two three" --stop-on-error word
pnpm testSource runs have no runtime dependencies. Each native archive includes LICENSE; use the release's SHA256SUMS to verify downloads. macOS binaries are not notarized.
The fullscreen interface uses the serika-dark palette, a centered three-line test, a mode bar, and a results graph of WPM, raw speed, and errors. The first two lines stay in place; after entering the third, each new line scrolls the active line into the middle with a line ahead.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F1 / F2 / F3 | Time / words / quote mode |
| F4 | Custom text, when started with --text |
| F5 / F6 | Cycle time, word count, or quote length |
| F10 | Open or close settings |
| Tab | Restart |
| Backspace / Ctrl+W | Erase a character / erase a word |
| Esc / Ctrl+C | Quit |
Click mode and length labels to select them. In settings, use Up/Down to select, Left/Right or Enter to change, and Esc to close; clicking a setting cycles its value. Changing a setting or opening the menu during an active test starts a fresh test.
Settings include English, Spanish, French, German, and Turkish word lists and quotes from Monkeytype; punctuation and numbers for generated time/words tests; and difficulty, stop/delete on error, confidence, strict space, freedom, and quick end. Choices are saved to ~/.config/monkeytype-tui/settings.json on Linux/macOS or %APPDATA%\monkeytype-tui\settings.json on Windows. Run node src/cli.js --help for the full set of options.
Incorrect characters and missed letters appear red, extra characters dark red, correct characters light, and untyped characters muted. Extra letters appear inline while typing; after moving on, they are hidden and the word is underlined, while the result still counts them. Space commits a partially typed word in normal mode. Backspace edits the current word, and Ctrl+W or Ctrl+Backspace clears it. From an empty word, deletion can return to a previous incorrect word; it cannot return to an already correct word unless --freedom is set. The timer starts with the first accepted character.
Standalone executables check the public GitHub release on startup. On Linux and macOS, a newer version installs before the test opens. On Windows, the current test opens while the update waits to replace the executable after the test closes. Run monkeytype-tui update to check and install manually; on Windows this starts the replacement in the background and prints a log path if it fails. Updates download the archive for your OS and architecture, verify its SHA-256 checksum, and replace the executable in place. Keep the executable in a writable directory; an offline or failed startup check leaves the current version usable. Source runs with pnpm start do not update automatically.
Every push to main runs tests and publishes a release named 0.0.<commit-unix-time>-g<7-character-sha>, following the generated identity format used by harness. The commit timestamp and SHA keep the version stable across workflow reruns. monkeytype-tui --version prints the embedded identity. For a local build, install Bun 1.3.10 and run sh scripts/build-release.sh; its six archives and checksums appear in dist/.
This is an initial port of the input loop, not feature parity with the website. Time, word, and quote modes and custom space-separated text work. Punctuation generation covers sentence capitalization, periods, and commas; Monkeytype's full punctuation rules, newline/code input, IME composition, funboxes, replays, website statistics, and account features are not implemented. Terminal key and mouse handling depends on the emulator; Ctrl+W is available when Ctrl+Backspace is sent as plain Backspace.