Wiretext

Wiretext is a Unicode wireframe design tool for generating editable layouts as plain text. It turns structured JSON into ASCII/Unicode layouts that can be rendered in a terminal, opened in the web editor, or created through an MCP server.

The public value is the reusable tooling:

• wiretext — CLI for rendering, creating, and sharing wireframes
• @wiretext/mcp — MCP server for typed wireframe generation from AI assistants
• @wiretext/engine — layout, composition, validation, sharing, and rendering engine
• @wiretext/schemas — Zod schemas for tool and document contracts

Install

npm install -g wiretext

Or run without installing:

npx wiretext --help

CLI

Render a wireframe from JSON:

echo '{ "objects": [{ "type": "box", "label": "Hello", "width": 20, "height": 5 }] }' | wiretext render

Create an editable Wiretext URL:

wiretext create layout.json

Create a permanent short URL:

wiretext share layout.json --dry-run
wiretext share layout.json

Use --dry-run before share; sharing creates a permanent URL through the hosted Wiretext API.

MCP

Wiretext also ships an MCP server:

npx -y @wiretext/mcp

For Codex:

[mcp_servers.wiretext]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@wiretext/mcp"]

The MCP server exposes typed tools for rendering wireframes and creating editable Wiretext URLs without shell escaping.

Agent Workflow

Wiretext is designed for coding agents and design agents:

• wiretext schema prints the runtime JSON Schema.
• wiretext context prints the layout guide agents should read before generating wireframes.
• Non-TTY output defaults to structured JSON.
• Mutating share operations support --dry-run.
• Input is validated with Zod before rendering or sharing.

Hosted vs self-hosted

Most of Wiretext runs entirely offline. Only short-link sharing touches a hosted service.

Fully offline (no network, no keys):

• wiretext render — renders ASCII/Unicode to stdout
• wiretext create — encodes the document into a fragment URL (https://wiretext.app/#…); the payload lives in the URL hash, so nothing is uploaded
• wiretext share --dry-run — validates and reports encoded size without posting
• wiretext schema and wiretext context
• The MCP render_wireframe tool

Hits the hosted API:

• wiretext share (without --dry-run) and the MCP create_wireframe tool POST to https://wiretext.app/api/share and return a short /w/:id URL. Point them at your own deployment with the CLI --base-url flag or the MCP baseUrl parameter.

Self-hosting the share endpoint needs an Upstash Redis instance:

• UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL
• UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN

Without these, /api/share responds 503 and short links are unavailable — but the editor itself, wiretext create, and hash-URL (#…) sharing keep working, because the document is carried in the URL rather than stored server-side.

NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY is optional. Analytics is a no-op when it is unset, so a keyless clone still gets the full editor with hash-URL sharing.

See apps/app/.env.example for the annotated variable list.

Workspace

apps/
  app/      Hosted web editor
  cli/      Published `wiretext` CLI
  mcp/      Published `@wiretext/mcp` server
packages/
  engine/   Layout and rendering engine
  schemas/  Shared Zod schemas

Development

Requires Node 24.15+ and pnpm 11 (enable it once with corepack enable).

pnpm install
pnpm dev      # runs the web editor
pnpm check    # lint + typecheck + test

Individual tasks are also available: pnpm build, pnpm lint, pnpm typecheck, pnpm test.

Contributing

PRs welcome. Run pnpm check before opening one. Contributions are accepted under the MIT license.

License

MIT