Ratatalk 🦀💬

A terminal chat client for Ollama, built with Rust and ratatui.

Features

• 🚀 Fast & Responsive: Non-blocking UI with streamed responses
• 💬 Multi-Session: Manage multiple named chat conversations
• 💾 Persistent: Sessions auto-save across restarts
• ⌨️ Keyboard-Driven: Vim-inspired keybindings
• 🖱️ Mouse Support: Click to switch sessions, scroll chat, and navigate
• 🎨 Beautiful TUI: Clean, modern terminal interface
• ⚙️ Configurable: TOML-based configuration

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable)
• Ollama running locally

Install via crates.io (recommended)

The easiest way to get started is to install Ratatalk as a global CLI tool:

cargo install ratatalk

This downloads the latest version from crates.io and installs it to your ~/.cargo/bin directory. After installation, ratatalk will be available in your PATH, so you can run it from any directory:

ratatalk

Screenshot from the app:

Run from source (for development)

If you want to hack on Ratatalk or try the latest features from the repository:

git clone https://github.com/mohammad-albarham/ratatalk.git
cd ratatalk

Then run it in development mode:

cargo run

Or with optimizations (recommended for better performance):

cargo run --release

Optional: Handy shell alias

If you frequently run from source, you can add a shell alias to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

alias rt='cargo run --release'

Reload your shell configuration to apply it:

source ~/.zshrc  # or source ~/.bashrc

Now you can simply type rt to run Ratatalk:

rt

Usage

Running Ollama

Ratatalk expects a local Ollama server running on http://127.0.0.1:11434 (the default). Start Ollama in a terminal:

ollama serve

Starting Ratatalk

In another terminal, run Ratatalk:

ratatalk

If you installed via crates.io, just use ratatalk. If you're running from source with the shell alias, use rt.

Keybindings

General

Key	Action
q / Ctrl+c	Quit
?	Toggle help
Ctrl+r	Refresh models

Navigation

Key	Action
Tab	Next session
Shift+Tab	Previous session
Ctrl+n	New session
Ctrl+w	Delete session
m	Select model

Chat

Key	Action
i / Enter	Start typing
Esc	Stop typing
Enter	Send message (while typing)

Scrolling

Key	Action
j / ↓	Scroll down
k / ↑	Scroll up
Ctrl+d	Page down
Ctrl+u	Page up
g	Scroll to top
G	Scroll to bottom

Input Editing

Key	Action
Ctrl+a	Move to start of line
Ctrl+e	Move to end of line
Ctrl+u	Clear input
Ctrl+w	Delete word

Configuration

Configuration is stored at ~/.config/ratatalk/config.toml:

[server]
host = "http://127.0.0.1:11434"
timeout_secs = 30

[model]
default_model = "llama3.2:latest"
temperature = 0.7
top_k = 40
top_p = 0.9
max_tokens = 0  # 0 = unlimited

[ui]
show_timestamps = true
show_token_count = true
sidebar_width = 30
mouse_support = true
tick_rate_ms = 100

[keybindings]
vim_mode = false

Data Storage

• Config: ~/.config/ratatalk/config.toml
• Sessions: ~/.local/share/ratatalk/sessions.json
• Logs: ~/.config/ratatalk/ratatalk.log

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs           # Entry point, terminal setup, main loop
├── app.rs            # Application state, events, actions
├── config.rs         # Configuration management
├── error.rs          # Error types
├── events.rs         # Input handling, keybindings
├── persistence.rs    # Session save/load
├── ollama/
│   ├── mod.rs        # Module exports
│   ├── client.rs     # HTTP client
│   └── types.rs      # API types
└── ui/
    ├── mod.rs        # UI module, colors, styles
    ├── layout.rs     # Screen layout
    ├── chat.rs       # Chat area rendering
    ├── input.rs      # Input box rendering
    ├── sidebar.rs    # Session/model sidebar
    └── popup.rs      # Modal dialogs

Roadmap

MVP ✅

• Connect to local Ollama
• List available models
• Chat with streaming responses
• Multiple chat sessions
• Persistent config & sessions
• Basic keybindings

Future

• System prompts per session
• Adjustable model parameters per session
• SQLite backend for history
• Export chat to Markdown
• Token/latency statistics
• Vim-style keybindings
• Search within chat
• RAG support with local files
• Image/multimodal support

Changelog

v0.1.2 (2026-01-07)

🖱️ Mouse Navigation Support — Fixes #1

• Click to switch sessions: Click any session in the sidebar to switch to it
• Click to focus input: Click the input area to enter editing mode
• Click model box: Click the model info box to open the model selector
• Scroll with mouse wheel: Scroll through chat history using the mouse wheel
• Click to dismiss popups: Click anywhere to close help, model selector, or delete confirmation popups
• Configuration option mouse_support to enable/disable (enabled by default)

Commit: 99ba6db

---

v0.1.1 (2026-01-05)

• Initial release on crates.io
• Chat with local Ollama models
• Multiple persistent sessions
• Vim-style keybindings
• Streaming responses
• TOML configuration

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• Ollama for the excellent local LLM server
• ratatui for the amazing TUI framework
• oterm for inspiration