I’m working on a command-line tool and keep running into the same question: how do I make this cleaner, more legible, and easier to use for humans and machines alike?

Designing in the terminal is severely constrained. But that's also what makes it so compelling. How does one turn glyphs, color, and space into something sparse, yet densely communicative?

I have my own aesthetic sensibilities, but I’m curious: - Are there people known for doing this exceptionally well? - Are there CLI tools that are considered gold standards from a typesetting perspective? - Do any of these folks write about their thinking, or have work worth studying?

I’m not interested in ornament, just clarity and restraint.

Pointers to people, projects, essays, or even old tools that are still worth learning from would be greatly appreciated.