# spectreconsole/spectre.console

A .NET library that makes it easier to create beautiful console applications.

Repository: https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/spectreconsole
Homepage: https://spectreconsole.net
Language: C#
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: console, ansi-colors, console-visualization, console-tables, dotnet, dotnet-standard, cli-parser, opencli, csharp
Last push: 2026-08-21T22:29:01+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 85/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 60, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2234, "days_push": 12, "days_rel": 62, "gap_med": 12.5, "n_releases_24m": 13}
- flags: prerelease_only
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 11601, forks 670 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:48.924952+00:00)

## What it is
Spectre.Console is a .NET library for building beautiful, cross-platform console applications with styled text, tables, charts, progress bars, spinners, and interactive prompts. It includes a Rich-inspired markup language and a companion CLI framework (Spectre.Console.Cli) for command-line argument parsing.

## Use cases
- render formatted tables and panels in a C# console app
- add progress bars and spinners to long-running CLI tasks
- prompt users for input with validation in a terminal application
- style console output with colors and markup in .NET
- build command-line tools with a .NET CLI framework
- display bar charts and trees in the terminal

## When to choose
- you are building a .NET console application and want rich, styled output
- you need interactive prompts, progress bars, or status spinners in a CLI tool
- you want terminal color capability detection with automatic downgrading
- you want a Rich (Python)-like experience in C#

## When to avoid
- you are not working in the .NET ecosystem
- you need a full TUI framework with keyboard-driven apps (consider Terminal.Gui instead)
- you need GUI or web-based output rather than terminal rendering

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, terminal-ui, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: cross-platform, dotnet, cli
- tags: console-ui, ansi-colors, rich-markup, progress-bars, prompts, csharp, nuget, command-line

## Member repositories
- spectreconsole/spectre.console (main) score 85

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:48.924952+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:15:29.022197+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:48.924952+00:00, sha 6805fd225117)
  - homepage: https://spectreconsole.net (fetched 2026-08-29T08:13:53.790395+00:00, sha 71d8c6a61926)
  - site_page: https://spectreconsole.net/console (fetched 2026-08-29T08:13:53.799440+00:00, sha b851ec8dc257)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.