zellij-sheets 0.1.2

Terminal-based spreadsheet viewer powered by Zellij
Documentation 
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Crates.io Docs.rs License: AGPL-3.0-or-later Rust

Terminal-native spreadsheet viewing for Zellij and the command line.

zellij-sheets is the grid/navigation layer: load tabular data, move around it quickly, search it, and inspect or update CSV cells from a native CLI. It is intentionally viewer-first. Workflow-level pipeline semantics belong in nustage, not here.

What It Does

  • Zellij plugin for spreadsheet browsing
  • Native CLI for previewing files or stdin
  • Cell, range, and CSV write addressing from the CLI
  • Horizontal scrolling with a real column cursor
  • Vim-style navigation
  • Search with /, ?, n, and N
  • CSV and Excel (.xlsx, .xls) loading
  • Unicode-aware column layout

What It Is Not

  • Not a workflow or transformation pipeline engine
  • Not a formula system
  • Not a sidecar/provenance tool
  • Not a replacement for nustage

Status

  • Native CLI: usable for preview, stdin, cell/range reads, and CSV writes
  • Zellij plugin: usable interactive viewer
  • Working formats: CSV, Excel (.xlsx, .xls)
  • Parquet: not supported yet
  • Native full-screen interactive TUI: next major step

Build

Build the native binary:

cargo build

Build the Zellij plugin:

cargo build --release --target wasm32-wasip1

Build the optional smoke-test plugin binaries:

cargo build --target wasm32-wasip1 --features plugin-smoke --bin plugin-smoke --bin plugin-state-smoke

The plugin artifact is:

target/wasm32-wasip1/release/zellij-sheets.wasm

Native CLI

Show help:

cargo run -- --help

Preview a file:

cargo run -- data.csv

Read a single cell:

cargo run -- data.csv B9

Read a range:

cargo run -- data.csv B1:B3

Write a CSV cell:

cargo run -- data.csv B7=10

Read CSV from stdin:

cat data.csv | cargo run -- B2

Or explicitly use -:

cat data.csv | cargo run -- - B2

Zellij Install

Add the plugin to your Zellij config:

plugins {
    zellij-sheets location="file:/home/youruser/path/to/zellij-sheets/target/wasm32-wasip1/release/zellij-sheets.wasm"
}

Then use it in a layout and pass the input file through plugin configuration:

layout {
    pane {
        plugin location="zellij-sheets" {
            input "/tmp/zellij-sheets-sample.csv"
        }
    }
}

An example alias-based layout is included at layouts/spreadsheet.kdl. Create a sample file before launching it:

printf 'a,b\n1,2\n3,4\n' > /tmp/zellij-sheets-sample.csv

Keys

Current plugin/native behavior is centered around the shared state model.

  • Up / Down / Left / Right: move selection
  • h / j / k / l: vim movement
  • gg / G: jump to top / bottom
  • Ctrl-U / Ctrl-D: half-page up / down
  • 0 / $: first / last column
  • H / M / L: top / middle / bottom visible row
  • / / ?: start forward / backward search
  • n / N: next / previous search result
  • Esc: cancel search
  • q or Ctrl-C: close the plugin

Repo Boundary

Keep zellij-sheets focused on:

  • rendering
  • cursoring
  • scrolling
  • search
  • addressing
  • light file I/O
  • plugin/native TUI behavior

If a feature is primarily about named transformations, reproducible step pipelines, provenance, execution planning, or workflow state, it belongs in nustage.

Docs

Notes

  • The plugin requests hard-drive access and works through Zellij’s host filesystem model.
  • The shared state/rendering path is used by both the native binary and the plugin.
  • cargo test --all-features may still expose feature-gated smoke-test issues unrelated to the core viewer path; the main development loop also uses targeted cargo test --lib, integration tests, cargo check, and wasm builds.