mira

A pretty, interactive folder visualizer for the terminal — a desktop-style file browser with ASCII-art icons, mouse clicks, keyboard navigation, and .gitignore-aware listing.

 ▸ /Users/you/code/some-repo

╭──────────────────╮  ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓  ╭──────────────────╮  ╭┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈╮
│ ↑  ..            │  ┃ ▶  docs          ┃  │ ▸  internal      │  ┊ ·  README.md     ┊
│                  │  ┃                  ┃  │                  │  ┊                  ┊
│   go up          │  ┃   3 items        ┃  │   2 items        │  ┊   4.3KB          ┊
│                  │  ┃                  ┃  │                  │  ┊                  ┊
╰──────────────────╯  ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛  ╰──────────────────╯  ╰┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈╯

                                                 /\_/\     /^.^\
                                                ( o.o )   ( o.o )
                                                 > ^ <     v=-=v

↑↓←→/wasd move · ⏎ open · o launch · ⌫ up · h hidden · f find · . settings · e end here · q quit

Features

• Interactive grid view — every directory is a single layer of clickable cards. No deep tree to scan with your eyes.
• Real mouse support — click any folder to enter it, click .. to go up.
• Keyboard-first — arrow keys or wasd, Enter to open, Backspace / Esc to go up, q to quit.
• Gitignore-aware — files matched by your project's .gitignore are hidden by default, just like in your editor. Pass --no-ignore to see everything.
• Pipe-friendly — when stdout is not a terminal (or you pass --list), output is a clean, plain listing you can pipe into grep, xargs, etc.
• Zero runtime config — single binary, no shell integration required.

Install

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install mondial7/tap/mira

The tap is published automatically on every release, so brew upgrade mira always pulls the latest.

Pre-built binaries

Download the binary for your platform from the latest release and put it on your PATH. Each release includes SHA-256 checksums and an SBOM.

From source

go install github.com/mondial7/mira@latest

Usage

Usage: mira [options] [path]

Options:
  -a              show hidden (dotfile) entries
  -d              list directories only
  --list          force flat-list output instead of the TUI
  --no-ignore     disable .gitignore filtering
  --cd-file PATH  on 'e' (end here), write the chosen directory to PATH
                  (used by the shell wrapper — see below)
  --version       print version and exit

Examples

Browse the current directory interactively:

mira

Browse a specific path, including hidden files and gitignored entries:

mira -a --no-ignore ~/code/some-repo

Pipe a flat listing into your shell:

mira --list | grep .go

Keybindings

Key	Action
← / → / a / d	Move cursor left/right
↑ / ↓ / w / s	Move cursor up/down
Enter / Space	Open selected folder
o	Launch highlighted file/folder in the OS default app
Backspace / Esc	Go up one directory
Home / g	Jump to first item
End / G	Jump to last item
h	Toggle hidden (dotfile) entries
f	Find — start a fuzzy search
.	Open the settings overlay
q / Ctrl-C	Quit
e	End here — quit and cd into the directory †
Mouse click on a folder	Enter that folder
Mouse click on ..	Go up

† Requires the shell wrapper from the next section.

When the find bar is open: type to filter (case-insensitive subsequence match), arrow keys to move within matches, Enter to open the highlighted folder, Esc to cancel and restore the full listing.

Settings

Press . in the file browser to open the settings overlay. It exposes three knobs that change the look without leaving the TUI:

Setting	Values	Default
Theme	slate, forest, ocean, rose	slate
Borders	fine, thick, dotted	fine
Bionic	on, off	on

Inside the overlay, ↑/↓ (or w/s) moves between rows, ←/→ (or a/d) cycles the focused value, Enter cycles forward, and Esc or . closes the overlay.

Choices persist between launches in a JSON file at os.UserConfigDir()/mira/config.json — typically ~/Library/Application Support/mira/config.json on macOS, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mira/config.json (or ~/.config/mira/config.json) on Linux, and %AppData%\mira\config.json on Windows. The file is written only when you actually change a value; opening the overlay and dismissing it without touching anything does not create one. Delete the file to reset to defaults.

End here & cd: shell wrapper

e ("end here") quits the TUI and asks the parent shell to cd into whatever directory you ended up exploring. Plain q (lowercase) quits without changing directory.

e only changes the parent shell's directory if you wrap the binary in a shell function. The wrapper passes a temp file via --cd-file and reads it back after the TUI exits — this is bulletproof against any output that the terminal-restore step might emit.

Drop one of these in your shell rc file (rename m to whatever you like):

# ~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc
m() {
  local f
  f=$(mktemp -t mira.XXXXXX) || return
  command mira --cd-file "$f" "$@"
  if [ -s "$f" ]; then
    cd -- "$(cat "$f")"
  fi
  rm -f "$f"
}

# ~/.config/fish/functions/m.fish
function m
  set f (mktemp -t mira.XXXXXX); or return
  command mira --cd-file $f $argv
  if test -s $f
    cd -- (cat $f)
  end
  rm -f $f
end

Now m opens the TUI; press e to end the session and have your shell follow you into whatever directory you ended up exploring. Plain q exits without changing the directory.

Security

mira does not modify or transmit any file. The only side-effect it can trigger is pressing o, which hands the highlighted path to the OS default opener (open on macOS, xdg-open on Linux, rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler on Windows). The launched application runs with your user's permissions — mira itself never reads or executes the file's contents. See SECURITY.md for the disclosure policy.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide. The TL;DR:

git clone https://github.com/mondial7/mira
cd mira
make test
go run .

A Makefile wraps the common dev loop: make test, make lint, make build, make release-snapshot. Please run make lint before opening a PR.

Project structure

mira/
├── main.go                  entry point: flags + TTY detection
├── internal/
│   ├── listing/             pure logic: read + filter + sort + gitignore
│   └── tui/                 bubbletea Model/View/Update + ASCII art
├── docs/                    GitHub Pages landing site
└── .github/                 CI, security scans, issue templates, release

Acknowledgements

Built on the excellent bubbletea and lipgloss by Charm, plus go-gitignore by Shaba Abhiram.

License

MIT