Research existing terminal output datasets and ANSI test suites (litmus-3lcp)
Research what already exists for realistic terminal output samples:
- Terminal emulator test suites (xterm.js, alacritty, kitty, wezterm test data)
- ANSI art collections and archives
- Terminal recording tools (asciinema, terminalizer) — public recording galleries
- Other theme preview tools — how do they generate sample content?
- Color scheme testing tools (base16, terminal.sexy, gogh)
Goal: find reusable content or inspiration, not reinvent. Document findings in a research note. Stage promising candidates.
Research Findings
Top Recommendations for Litmus
| Priority | Resource | License | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | tinted-theming/schemes (GitHub) | MIT | 250+ color schemes in YAML, directly importable |
| 2 | Gogh themes (GitHub) | MIT | 200+ themes, clean 18-color YAML format |
| 3 | shell-color-scripts (GitLab dwt1) | MIT | 50+ color patterns for sample preview content |
| 4 | terminal.sexy (GitHub) | MIT | Template-based preview approach (captures real tmux pane content) |
| 5 | pastel / vivid (sharkdp, Rust) | MIT/Apache-2.0 | Color manipulation + filetype database for realistic ls output |
| 6 | colortest (eliminmax) | Mixed | Canonical 256-color test pattern with Rust impl |
| 7 | asciinema asciicast v2 | Apache-2.0 | Format for capturing/replaying real terminal sessions |
| 8 | alacritty-theme (GitHub) | Apache-2.0 | 100+ TOML themes with screenshot previews |
Key Findings
Theme data sources: tinted-theming/schemes (MIT, 250+ base16/base24 YAML) and Gogh (MIT, 200+ YAML) are the most valuable for importing color schemes. Both are permissively licensed.
Preview content generation: terminal.sexy uses captured tmux panes as templates. shell-color-scripts (MIT) has 50+ bash scripts producing diverse color patterns — output could be captured as sample content. vivid’s filetypes.yml provides a comprehensive filetype database for realistic ls output.
ANSI art: 16colo.rs is the largest archive but per-artist copyright prevents bundling. Not directly usable.
Test patterns: colortest provides a standardized 256-color output (16 base + 216 cube + 24 grayscale) with Rust implementation. pastel has colorcheck for terminal capability detection.
Recording format: asciinema’s asciicast v2 (NDJSON with timestamps and raw ANSI) is the standard for terminal recordings. Public recordings could supplement fixture content.