ROS2 Info ⊙

A fastfetch-style ROS2 workstation lens: know what, where, and which is working.

Born from curiosity. Built for roboticists.

A Rust terminal IDE for ROS 2 developers — VS Code energy, zero Electron weight.

GitHub Developer Program member — ros2_info integrates with the GitHub REST API. Uses the Invertocat mark to show integration, per GitHub's logo guidelines.

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See it move

A real TUI, not a static screenshot. Produced with the tool's own session recorder — the tool demos itself.

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30-second quickstart

Install:

# Clone and build (one-time, ~30s on a modern laptop)
git clone https://github.com/Gaurav-x111/ros2_info && cd ros2_info
cd src/tui && cargo build --release && cd ../..

# Run
./src/tui/target/release/ros2-info-tui

That's it. No Python venv. No pip install. No dependency chain. One binary, runs on whatever you built it on.

The Python collector is called in the background for ROS 2 data — if you have Python 3.10+ and a sourced ROS 2 workspace, it Just Works. If not, you still get the full editor, terminal, system stats, and file explorer.

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Feature highlights

• Full-screen VS Code-style TUI — Explorer, tabbed editor with syntax highlighting, integrated pty-backed terminal, right panel with entities/telemetry/graph
• Six live dashboard tabs — Overview, ROS 2, Workspace, Diagnostics, Trends, Fleet — backed by a background collector thread
• Real PTY terminal — run ros2 commands, colcon build, ros2 launch — not a one-shot Command::output() shim
• Multi-tab editor — open files from the explorer, undo/redo, find/replace, word wrap, goto-line, change indicators, Neovim keybindings
• Mouse + keyboard, both first-class — click tabs, drag panel edges, scroll editor/terminal, right-click context menus — not one as a fallback for the other
• ROS 2 Graph canvas — live publisher → topic → subscriber visualization with drawn connections
• AI assistant — ai scan, ai fix, ai explain, ai chat inside the terminal (Ollama backend, diff-gated)
• Sandbox / Global toggle — try things in a namespaced sandbox before touching the real system
• Git integration — status, diff, commit, branches, GitHub issues/PRs via gh
• Command Palette — fuzzy file open (Ctrl+P), ROS 2 tool launcher (Ctrl+Shift+P)
• Plugin system — in-process Rust plugin API: add dashboard tabs, terminal commands, and lifecycle hooks without forking the core
• Cross-container visibility — ros2_info compose aggregates nodes/topics across all running Docker containers (incl. docker-compose stacks on isolated networks/domains) via docker exec, so the dashboard shows the whole system, not just one DDS domain
• Single static binary — built for Raspberry Pi / Jetson / SSH, not just laptops

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Why this exists

Task	Raw ros2 CLI + editor	ros2_info
See what's running	ros2 node list + ros2 topic list + ros2 service list (three terminals)	One dashboard, live-updating
Figure out which DDS	echo $RMW_IMPLEMENTATION + guess	Title bar, always visible
Check workspace health	colcon build --packages-select ... + read output	Diagnostics tab, auto-detected
Edit a file	Switch to VS Code, find it, open it	Explorer sidebar, multi-tab editor, right here
Run a launch file	ros2 launch pkg file.py in a separate terminal	Integrated terminal, no context switch
Debug a transform tree	ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames + open PDF	ROS 2 Graph canvas, live
Try something safely	Hope you don't break the robot	Sandbox mode, namespaced

The honest case: it's not that you can't do these things manually. It's that doing them in one screen is better than doing them in five.

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Sandbox vs. Global

graph LR
    A[Sandbox Mode] -->|namespaced| B["/sandbox/* topics"]
    B --> C[Preview changes]
    C --> D[Toggle to Global]
    D --> E[Real system]

    style A fill:#f0a500,color:#1e1e2e
    style E fill:#e74c3c,color:#fff

Loading

Sandbox (default): Commands run in a /sandbox namespace. Nodes, topics, and services are isolated from the real system. Try things freely.

Global: Commands execute directly on your real ROS 2 environment. Toggle with F6 — you'll get a confirmation prompt first.

The full Preview → Apply export flow (staging changes before committing to Global) is on the roadmap. Today it's a binary toggle.

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Plugins

ros2_info ships with an in-process Rust plugin API — you can extend the TUI (add dashboard tabs, register terminal/AI commands, react to lifecycle events) without forking the core crate. A built-in example plugin is registered by default so you can see it working immediately.

What you get out of the box

• Plugins sidebar (click the 🔌 activity bar icon) — lists every registered plugin with its version, and renders the first contributed dashboard tab live.
• ai battery — a terminal command contributed by the example plugin that reads /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity.
• File-saved notifications — the example plugin reacts to AppEvent::FileSaved and shows a status toast on every save.

How to add a plugin

The full walkthrough lives in docs/plugins.md. The short version:

1. Create a crate under src/tui/src/plugins/<name>/ (or add a module to src/tui/src/plugins/).
2. Implement ros2_info_tui::plugin::Plugin — provide name(), version(), and any of dashboard_tabs(), terminal_commands(), on_event().
3. Register it in src/tui/src/plugins/mod.rs::register_builtins (one line: mgr.register(Box::new(my_plugin::MyPlugin));).
4. cargo build — your plugin is live. No FFI, no external loader.

use ros2_info_tui::plugin::{Plugin, AppEvent, PluginAction};

pub struct MyPlugin;

impl Plugin for MyPlugin {
    fn name(&self) -> &str { "my-dashboard" }
    fn version(&self) -> &str { "0.1.0" }

    fn on_event(&self, event: &AppEvent) -> Option<PluginAction> {
        match event {
            AppEvent::FileSaved(path) =>
                Some(PluginAction::Notify(format!("saved {}", path.display()))),
            _ => None,
        }
    }
}

What plugins can / can't do

• Can: add dashboard tabs, register ai <command> handlers, react to BuildFailed / FileSaved / GitPush / TopicReceived events, surface notifications and enqueue terminal commands.
• Can't: mutate editor content without consent, reach the network without permission, bypass the Preview → Apply gate, or read another plugin's state.

External / third-party plugins (loaded at runtime) are the next step. Today plugins are compiled into the binary via register_builtins; the API surface they implement is stable and documented in docs/plugins.md.

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Full command reference

TUI keyboard shortcuts

Mouse interactions

Action	Target
Click	Tabs, activity bar icons, explorer tree rows, editor cursor placement
Right-click	File tree context menu (rename, delete, duplicate)
Scroll	Editor content, terminal scrollback
Drag	Panel resize edges (sidebar, right panel, terminal top)
Click +	New editor tab
Click ✕	Close editor tab

AI commands (in terminal)

Command	What it does
ai help	List available commands
ai	Enter interactive chat mode
ai scan	Hunt build errors in your workspace
ai fix <file>	Attempt to patch a specific file
ai auto	Scan + fix (up to 3 attempts, diff-gated)
ai explain <error>	Translate compiler output to English
ai chat <msg>	Ask a question
ai web [port]	Web chat UI (default 8899)

Mutating actions (ai fix, ai auto) go through the same Preview → Apply gate as everything else. No silent exceptions.

Full keybinding table (Neovim mode)

Key	Action
i	Enter Insert mode
a	Append after cursor
o	Open line below
A	Append to end of line
I	Insert at start of line
dd	Delete line
yy	Yank (copy) line
p	Paste below
u	Undo
Ctrl+R	Redo
v	Enter visual mode
gg	Go to top
G	Go to bottom
w / b / e	Word forward / back / end
0 / $	Start / end of line

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Supported platforms

Platform	Status
Linux x86_64	Primary development platform
Linux aarch64	Built and tested on Raspberry Pi 5, Jetson Orin
SSH sessions	First-class — the TUI is designed for headless-over-SSH workflows
macOS	Should work (ratatui + crossterm), not primary testing target
Windows	Not yet — portable-pty has Windows support but untested

The binary ships statically linked. No Python venv required for the TUI itself. The Python collector (ros2_fastfetch) is called in the background for ROS 2 data and needs Python 3.10+ with a sourced ROS 2 workspace — but the TUI runs without it (you just don't get ROS 2 entity discovery).

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Roadmap

• Full-screen VS Code-style TUI
• Six dashboard tabs with live background collection
• Integrated pty-backed terminal with multiple sessions
• Multi-tab editor with syntax highlighting, undo/redo, find/replace
• Mouse support: click, scroll, drag-resize, right-click context menu
• ROS 2 Graph canvas (publisher → topic → subscriber)
• Git integration with GitHub issues/PRs
• Command Palette with fuzzy file open
• Neovim keybinding mode
• AI assistant (Ollama-backed, diff-gated)
• Sandbox / Global mode toggle
• Plugin system (in-process Rust API + built-in example plugin)
• Session recorder (.cast / GIF export)
• Additional themes (Nord, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Dracula, Catppuccin)
• Multi-file AI refactors + test generation

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Contributing

Contributions welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions and guidelines.

The short version: fork, branch, cargo build, make it work, make it clean, open a PR.

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Credits

cc@zang aka Gaurav-x111 — author and maintainer.

Built with Ratatui, Crossterm, and stubbornness.

Started from a Python fastfetch-style tool with 39 stars before this Rust rewrite.

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GitHub integration

ros2_info is a participant in the GitHub Developer Program — it integrates directly with the GitHub REST API to surface issues and pull requests for the repository you're working in, and to create issues from the TUI.

• Issues and PRs are fetched from api.github.com and rendered in the Git sidebar's Issues / Pull Requests tabs.

• Authenticated requests are used automatically when a token is present (higher rate limits, private repos):

  export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here

• If the API is unreachable or no token is set, the tool gracefully falls back to the gh CLI when it's installed.

Support contact: open an issue at github.com/Gaurav-x111/ros2_info/issues or email gauravshah0777@gmail.com.

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License

MIT

Future updates (coming soon)

Created by roboticists, for roboticists 🤖

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