inquirer3

What it is and what it does

inquirer3 is a library for building interactive command-line prompts and forms. It provides question types like Text, List, Checkbox, Path, and Editor, each with built-in validation and parsing. You define a list of question objects, call prompt() once, and get back a dictionary of validated answers. It handles terminal rendering using blessed and can spawn external editors (vim, emacs, nano) for longer text input via the editor dependency.

The package is a fork of an older project, maintained to be more responsive to issues and pull requests. It supports Python 3.8 through 3.12 and is classified as production-stable. Maintenance is dormant—the last release was over two years ago and no active development is occurring, though the repository itself remains open. Install friction is low and there are no known security vulnerabilities.

Use it for:

• Build setup wizards or configuration scripts that ask users for settings with validation and menu selection.
• Create interactive CLI tools that guide users through multi-step workflows with branching logic and error feedback.
• Collect structured user input (names, paths, selections) in terminal applications with built-in validation.
• Implement interactive surveys or questionnaires in command-line environments with checkbox and list selections.
• Develop system administration or deployment tools that need to prompt for user choices and file paths.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Builds interactive command-line prompts with validation, supporting text input, lists, checkboxes, path selection, and external editor integration for collecting and parsing user responses.

Yes, if you need interactive CLI prompts and can accept dormant maintenance. The package is stable and has no known vulnerabilities, making it suitable for production use in tools where you control the Python version. However, do not rely on it for active bug fixes or new features—if you encounter issues or need support, you may need to fork or patch it yourself. For new projects, evaluate whether an actively maintained alternative better fits your risk tolerance.

Install

inquirer3 on PyPI

pip install inquirer3

uv add inquirer3

poetry add inquirer3

Installing inquirer3

Before you install

Low friction install with three lightweight runtime dependencies (blessed, editor, readchar). Maintenance is dormant—no releases in over two years despite an active repository, so expect no active support for new issues or pull requests.

License in practice

MIT license permits unrestricted use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions, making it safe for commercial and proprietary projects.

Quickstart

pip install inquirer3

import inquirer3

questions = [
    inquirer3.Text('name', message="What's your name?"),
    inquirer3.List('size', message="Pick a size:", choices=['Large', 'Small']),
]
answers = inquirer3.prompt(questions)

Requires Python 3.8.1 or later; primarily tested on UNIX-based platforms (Linux, macOS); Windows support is experimental.

Verify before relying

• Whether Windows experimental support has known limitations or failure modes beyond the general note in the description.
• Current state of the three runtime dependencies (blessed, editor, readchar) and whether they are actively maintained.
• Whether the dormant maintenance status affects compatibility with recent Python 3.12+ releases in practice.

Package facts

Evidence: inquirer3-0.6.1-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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