🌴 poke-tui

A terminal UI for Poke — chat with your AI assistant without leaving the terminal.

Built with Ink (React for CLIs) and the Poke SDK.

Quick start

npx poke-tui

On first run, you'll be guided through a one-time setup to paste your API key.

How it works

poke-tui connects to your Poke agent through the Poke API. You type messages in the terminal, and Poke responds inline — no need to switch to iMessage, Telegram, or SMS.

Behind the scenes, poke-tui runs a local MCP server and tunnels it to Poke's cloud using PokeTunnel. This gives the agent a reply_to_terminal tool it can call to send responses directly back to your terminal.

flowchart TD
    A["You type a message"] --> B["Poke API (sendMessage)"]
    B --> C["Poke Agent processes it"]
    C --> D["Agent calls reply_to_terminal"]
    D --> E["MCP Tunnel (WebSocket)"]
    E --> F["Response in your terminal"]

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Setup

Option 1: API key (recommended)

1. Go to poke.com/kitchen/api-keys
2. Generate a new key
3. Run npx poke-tui and paste it when prompted

The key is saved to ~/.config/poke-tui/config.json for future sessions.

Option 2: Environment variable

export POKE_API_KEY=your_key_here
npx poke-tui

poke-tui checks credentials in this order: POKE_API_KEY env var → ~/.config/poke-tui/config.json.

Commands

Command	Description
/help	Show available commands
/status	Show connection status
/webhook create <when> | <do what>	Create a webhook trigger
/webhook fire <#> {"data":"here"}	Fire a webhook with JSON data
/webhooks	List active webhooks
/clear	Clear the chat

Webhooks

Create automated triggers that fire your Poke agent with data:

/webhook create When a deploy fails | Summarize the error and suggest a fix
/webhook fire 0 {"repo":"my-app","error":"OOM killed","status":"failed"}

Key bindings

Key	Action
Enter	Send message
Ctrl-C	Quit
Esc	Clear input

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• A Poke account with an API key

How the MCP tunnel works

poke-tui starts a lightweight HTTP server locally that implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It exposes two tools:

• reply_to_terminal — the agent calls this to send its response to your terminal
• notify_terminal — for short notifications

The server is tunneled to Poke's cloud via PokeTunnel (WebSocket-based). When the agent processes your message, it calls the tool, and the response flows back through the tunnel into your terminal.

Configuration

Config is stored at ~/.config/poke-tui/config.json:

{
  "apiKey": "your_key_here"
}

To reset, delete the file and run npx poke-tui again.

Project structure

bin/
  poke-tui.js       Entry point (npx bin), onboarding flow
src/
  app.js            Wires MCP server, Poke client, and TUI together
  mcp-server.js     Local MCP server (raw JSON-RPC over HTTP)
  poke-client.js    Poke SDK + PokeTunnel wrapper
  tui.js            Ink (React) terminal UI

Credits

• Poke by The Interaction Company of California
• Ink by Vadim Demedes
• Poke SDK

License

MIT