A headless UI framework for Luau. One component runs across engines, desktop runtimes, and CI.
Most Luau UI libraries depend on game engine runtime internals for layout, input, and focus. Aether doesn't. Layout, hit testing, pointer arbitration, focus, motion, and text editing all run in pure Luau, allowing identical UI components to execute across multiple environments:
- inside game engine viewports,
- on the desktop through Dew, a native Rust host,
- headlessly in CI, where interactions and layout can be verified in automated pipelines without launching a graphics engine.
A host binds Aether's abstract geometry to concrete rendering surfaces. Host.detect() resolves the active host by probing environment capabilities rather than relying on manual configuration.
- Headless primitives. Pressable, Checkbox, RadioGroup, Tabs, Slider, Dialog, Combobox, ContextMenu, Tooltip, TextInput, ScrollArea, TreeView, and VirtualList. Each primitive handles state and interaction behavior while leaving visual styling completely in your hands.
- Controlled and uncontrolled state models, following the Ark UI / Zag model: pass a getter to observe and drive state externally, or let the primitive manage state automatically.
- Pure Luau interaction engine.
PointerRouter,KeysRouter,SelectionRouter,LayerManager,ScreenStack, andInputScoperesolve pointer arbitration, hit testing, focus traps, modal stacking, and layer hierarchies without host dependencies. - Off-engine text editing. Cursor position, selection range, character masking, and blinking carets are calculated directly in Luau, ensuring consistent text-editing mechanics across any environment.
- Reactive foundation. Deep integration with vide, featuring spring physics, presence/exit transitions, stagger effects, and floating-element positioning.
- Rigorous layout conformance. A suite of 123 data-driven layout cases validates layout parity, asserting bounding boxes, text bounds, flex wrapping, and constraint solving.
- Enforced architecture boundaries. Structural gates in CI continuously audit the codebase to ensure layer separation and eliminate unwanted platform coupling.
Aether is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Roblox Corporation.