What is annotui?

annotui is a terminal application for adding comments to a file or to text piped in from another command, built around using the mouse rather than typing commands to select what you want to comment on. It turns whatever text you give it into a read-only buffer that behaves like a GitHub pull request review: you drag across the lines you care about, an inline editor pops up, and you type your note. You can run it directly on a file, such as annotui README.md, or pipe text into it, such as git diff piped into annotui, or pass text directly with a buffer flag. The tool never changes the original text you are reviewing. Existing comments stay visible under the lines they refer to, and you can jump between them with the arrow keys or by clicking, then press Enter to edit one. Once you are done reviewing, annotui writes your comments out in one of a few formats. The default format writes only the quoted lines you commented on along with your notes. A full format quotes the entire input with comments inserted after the ranges they belong to. A JSON format writes a versioned model of the line ranges and comments, which is useful for saving your work and continuing it later. When loading a saved JSON review, annotui checks a hash of the original source and refuses to reapply old comments if the underlying text has changed, so comments cannot silently end up attached to the wrong lines. Controls cover both mouse and keyboard: dragging selects a range to comment on, clicking opens an existing comment, and keys like j, k, and the arrow keys move between comments, with dedicated keys to edit, delete, or jump to the next comment. A no-mouse flag is available for terminals where mouse capture is not wanted. Installation is a single cargo install command, since it is written in Rust and published on crates.io. It requires a Unix terminal and UTF-8 input. The project is released under the MIT license.