Rich Terminal Output Skill

When to Activate

Activate this skill when:

• Building CLI applications

• Displaying structured data (tables)

• Showing progress for long operations

• Creating error/status panels

• Pretty-printing objects for debugging

• Enhancing logging output

Installation

uv add rich

Quick test

python -c "from rich import print; print('[bold green]Rich working![/]')"

Core Concepts

Console Object

from rich.console import Console

console = Console()

Basic output

console.print("Hello, World!")

Styled output

console.print("[bold red]Error:[/] Something went wrong") console.print("[green]Success![/] Operation completed")

Markup Syntax

"[bold]Bold[/]" "[italic]Italic[/]" "[red]Red text[/]" "[blue on white]Blue on white background[/]" "[bold red]Combined styles[/]" "[link=https://example.com]Click here[/]"

Drop-in Print Replacement

from rich import print

print("[bold cyan]Styled text[/]") print({"key": "value"}) # Auto-pretty-prints

Tables

from rich.console import Console from rich.table import Table

console = Console()

table = Table(title="User List")

table.add_column("ID", style="cyan", justify="right") table.add_column("Name", style="magenta") table.add_column("Email", style="green") table.add_column("Status", justify="center")

table.add_row("1", "Alice", "alice@example.com", "✓ Active") table.add_row("2", "Bob", "bob@example.com", "✓ Active") table.add_row("3", "Charlie", "charlie@example.com", "✗ Inactive")

console.print(table)

Panels

from rich.console import Console from rich.panel import Panel

console = Console()

Simple panel

console.print(Panel("Operation completed!"))

Styled panel

console.print(Panel( "[green]All tests passed![/]\n\n" "Total: 42 tests\n" "Time: 3.2s", title="Test Results", border_style="green" ))

Error panel

console.print(Panel( "[red]Connection refused[/]\n\n" "Host: localhost:5432", title="[bold red]Error[/]", border_style="red" ))

Progress Bars

Simple Progress

from rich.progress import track import time

for item in track(range(100), description="Processing..."): time.sleep(0.01)

Multiple Tasks

from rich.progress import Progress

with Progress() as progress: task1 = progress.add_task("[red]Downloading...", total=100) task2 = progress.add_task("[green]Processing...", total=100)

while not progress.finished:
    progress.update(task1, advance=0.9)
    progress.update(task2, advance=0.6)
    time.sleep(0.02)

Syntax Highlighting

from rich.console import Console from rich.syntax import Syntax

console = Console()

code = ''' def hello(): print("Hello, World!") '''

syntax = Syntax(code, "python", theme="monokai", line_numbers=True) console.print(syntax)

Tree Displays

from rich.console import Console from rich.tree import Tree

console = Console()

tree = Tree("[bold blue]MyProject/[/]") src = tree.add("[bold]src/[/]") src.add("main.py") src.add("config.py")

tests = tree.add("[bold]tests/[/]") tests.add("test_main.py")

console.print(tree)

Logging Integration

import logging from rich.logging import RichHandler

logging.basicConfig( level=logging.INFO, format="%(message)s", handlers=[RichHandler(rich_tracebacks=True)] )

logger = logging.getLogger("myapp") logger.info("Application started") logger.error("Connection failed")

Pretty Tracebacks

from rich.traceback import install

Call once at startup

install(show_locals=True)

All exceptions now have beautiful tracebacks

Common Pitfalls

Reuse Console Instance

❌ Bad

def show(msg): Console().print(msg) # Creates new instance each time

✅ Good

console = Console() def show(msg): console.print(msg)

Escape User Input

from rich.markup import escape

username = "user[admin]"

❌ Bad - brackets break markup

console.print(f"[blue]{username}[/]")

✅ Good

console.print(f"[blue]{escape(username)}[/]")

Handle Non-TTY

import sys

console = Console(force_terminal=sys.stdout.isatty())

CLI Application Pattern

import click from rich.console import Console from rich.panel import Panel

console = Console()

@click.command() @click.argument('filename') def process(filename): console.print(f"[bold]Processing:[/] {filename}")

with console.status("[bold green]Working..."):
    result = do_work(filename)

if result.success:
    console.print(Panel(
        f"[green]Processed {result.count} items[/]",
        title="Success"
    ))
else:
    console.print(f"[red]Error:[/] {result.error}")

When NOT to Use Rich

• Non-interactive scripts (output piped)

• Server-side logging

• Performance-critical loops

• Minimal dependency requirements

Related Resources

See AgentUsage/rich_formatting.md for complete documentation including:

• Advanced table customization

• Spinner and status displays

• Console recording

• Integration patterns