Certamen: the TUI Quizzing App

Building

Releases

I have now setup Github Releases through Actions, if you want to skip the headache of building the program, feel free to head over to releases.

Dependencies

Certamen uses these predominant three libraries:

You also need a C++17 compiler (GCC >= 8 or Clang >= 7) and CMake >= 3.14.

CMake

Ubuntu / Debian:

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sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libyaml-cpp-dev libssh-dev

Fedora / RHEL:

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sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake yaml-cpp-devel libssh-devel

Arch Linux (AUR):

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sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake yaml-cpp libssh

Or any other equivalent function to install these packages on your machine.

Next, clone and build:

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git clone https://github.com/trintlermint/certamen.git
cd certamen
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

The binary compiles into an executable, stored at build/bin/certamen. Run:

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./build/bin/certamen ./example_quiz.yaml

Without arguments it looks for ./quiz.yaml in the current working directory being run from.

Manual compilation (CLI)

If yaml-cpp are installed system-wide and you want to skip CMake entirely, you can compile the CLI, the CLI is the previously, originally known “quizzer” app; faithfully renamed.

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g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -O2 main.cpp -lyaml-cpp -o certamen

[!NOTE]

This builds a local-only binary without the TUI or SSH server. Use the CMake build for the included features.

macOS and Windows

macOS (using Homebrew):

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brew install cmake yaml-cpp libssh
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

Windows (using vcpkg + MSVC):

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cmake --preset release
cmake --build --preset release

[!WARNING]

I am NOT a macOS OR Windows user; Manuals told me this should work, if it does or doesn’t please inform me on Github Issues! See CONTRIBUTING.md

Usage

Offline User Mode

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certamen quiz.yaml

The TUI presents a menu with keyboard (j/k), (up/down/left/right) and number-key navigation:

1. Take Quiz; answer questions (bool: randomiser), get scored at the end
2. Add Question; compose a question with choices, optional code snippet, and explanation
3. Remove Question; delete a question
4. Change Answer; update the correct answer for an existing question
5. Edit Choice; update the text contents of a selected question’s choice.
6. List Questions; browse all questions with toggleable answers, code, and explanations
7. Set Author and Name; set metadata describing the author/name.
8. Save and Exit; write changes back to the open YAML file.
9. Quit without Saving; write no changes back, quit the program.

Press R on the main menu to toggle randomized question and answer order.
REMARK: The mouse functionality is WIP.

SSH server mode

Host a quiz for others to connect to with any SSH client:

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certamen serve quiz.yaml                                  # default
certamen serve --password mysecret --port 2222 quiz.yaml  # port and pass
certamen serve --port 3000 algebra.yaml history.yaml      # port, max client

Players connect with ssh -p <port> <name>@<host> and get the same TUI in an isolated “quiz” session. The server logs scores per player.

[!IMPORTANT]

Full server shell documentation: SERVING.md. Also, password is currently having issues currently.

Quiz format

Quizzes are YAML files. Each question is a map in a top-to-down sequence which is nested inside questions:

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- question: "What is the time complexity of binary search?"
  choices:
    - "O(n)"
    - "O(log n)"
    - "O(n log n)"
    - "O(1)"
  answer: 1
  code: |
    int bsearch(int* a, int n, int target) {
        int lo = 0, hi = n - 1;
        while (lo <= hi) {
            int mid = (lo + hi) / 2;
            if (a[mid] == target) return mid;
            else if (a[mid] < target) lo = mid + 1;
            else hi = mid - 1;
        }
        return -1;
    }
  explain: |
    Each iteration halves the search space.
    After k iterations the range is n/2^k, which reaches 1 when k = log2(n).

• question, choices >= 2, and answer are required. code and explain are optional.
• answer is a 0-based index into choices. The TUI displays 1-based numbering to the player.
• language is an optional field for syntax highlight hinting (e.g. language: haskell) (see syntax.cpp for what has been implemented thus far).

See example_quiz.yaml for a working template and helping me stop writing stuff.

Troubleshooting

This project was made rather fast by my standards due to this thing called “Computer Addiction and writing in Helix.” Due to these factors, the code is bound to break. I would lovingly accept any Contributions, see CONTRIBUTING.md, or even a trivial github issue.

Anyway,

Credits

Written by trintlermint.

Certamen is built on:

• FTXUI by Arthur Sonzogni, terminal UI framework
• yaml-cpp by Jesse Beder, YAML parser
• libssh, SSH protocol implementation (THANK YOU DOCUMENTATION)

A big thank you to all frameworks used, and my friends for emotional support and motivation, specifically @valyntyler

The name Certamen is Latin for “contest” so I thought “yeah! this works!” thank you Wikipedia.

License

MIT; See LICENSE.md.
Copyright 2026 Niladri Adhikary.

Development Process

… TO come