Terminal UI

SKA includes a dynamic Terminal UI that collects variable values when scaffolding or updating projects.

How It Works

When a blueprint includes a .ska-upstream.yaml file with inputs defined, SKA automatically generates an interactive form in your terminal.

Input Configuration

Define inputs in your blueprint’s .ska-upstream.yaml:

inputs:
  - placeholder: appName
    label: Application Name
    help: The name of your application (lowercase, no spaces)
    regexp: "^[a-z0-9-]*$"
    default: myapp

  - placeholder: author
    label: Author
    help: Your name or organization name

  - placeholder: port
    label: HTTP Port
    help: The port your service will listen on
    regexp: "^[0-9]+$"
    default: "8080"

Input Properties

Property	Required	Description
`placeholder`	Yes	Variable name used in templates (e.g., `{{.appName}}`)
`label`	Yes	Display label shown in the form
`help`	No	Inline help text for the field
`regexp`	No	Validation pattern for accepted characters
`default`	No	Pre-filled default value

Validation

The regexp property validates input as the user types:

inputs:
  # Only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens
  - placeholder: projectSlug
    label: Project Slug
    regexp: "^[a-z0-9-]*$"

  # Semantic version format
  - placeholder: version
    label: Initial Version
    regexp: "^[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+$"
    default: "1.0.0"

  # Email format
  - placeholder: email
    label: Contact Email
    regexp: "^[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}$"

Non-Interactive Mode

For CI/CD pipelines or automation, skip the Terminal UI with --non-interactive:

ska create \
  --blueprint https://github.com/org/template@v1.0 \
  --output ./my-project \
  --non-interactive \
  -v appName=myservice \
  -v author="Platform Team" \
  -v port=3000

Providing Variables

Use the -v flag (multiple times) to pass variables:

ska create \
  --blueprint ./my-template \
  --output ./project \
  -n \
  -v key1=value1 \
  -v key2=value2 \
  -v key3="value with spaces"

Update Behavior

When running ska update, the Terminal UI:

Pre-fills fields with previously captured values
Allows you to modify any value
Applies the updated values to managed sections

# Interactive update - modify values as needed
ska update --path .

# Non-interactive update - keep existing values
ska update --path . --non-interactive

# Non-interactive with value overrides
ska update --path . -n -v port=9090