Install

Run it without installing:

npx docktui

Or install globally:

npm install -g docktui
docktui

Features

• Compose-aware Stacks view — containers grouped by project with running / errored / stopped counts, collapsible per stack.
• Containers / Images / Volumes — live CPU and memory stats, start / stop / restart / kill / remove with confirm dialogs.
• Detail panel — full metadata, mounts, environment, live CPU/MEM bars.
• Streaming log viewer with follow mode, scrollback cap, and color-coded stdout/stderr.
• Filter — press / from Stacks to filter by stack, service, or image name.
• Side rail navigation — 1–4 or Tab cycles views; click a live stack to jump to it.
• Help overlay — press h anywhere (except confirm dialogs / the stack filter) to toggle the key-binding reference.
• Shell into containers — x opens an external terminal exec'd into the selected container (macOS Terminal, Windows Terminal, common Linux emulators).
• Honors DOCKER_HOST — works with rootless Docker, podman, and remote daemons.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or later
• A running Docker daemon (Docker Desktop on macOS/Windows, Docker Engine on Linux, or any podman/rootless setup)
• A 256-color or truecolor terminal (TERM=xterm-256color or COLORTERM=truecolor)

Configuration

Custom Docker host

docktui auto-detects the daemon socket. To point it elsewhere, set DOCKER_HOST:

DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1000/docker.sock docktui          # rootless docker
DOCKER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock docktui   # podman
DOCKER_HOST=tcp://10.0.0.5:2375 docktui                        # remote daemon
DOCKER_HOST=npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine docktui             # Windows named pipe

Shell-into-container (x key)

Requires the docker CLI to be on your PATH. docktui launches your platform's native terminal with docker exec -it <id> sh (falls back to bash if available inside the container).

Key bindings

Global

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | 1 – 4 | Jump to Stacks / Containers / Images / Volumes | | Tab / Shift+Tab | Cycle views | | h | Toggle help overlay | | q / Ctrl+C | Quit |

Stacks

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | ↑ ↓ / j k | Navigate tree | | → / ← | Expand / collapse stack | | Enter | On a stack: toggle expand. On a service: open detail panel | | / | Open filter (Esc to clear) | | l | Open log viewer | | x | Shell into selected running container | | s / r / k | Stop / restart / kill running container (confirm) | | S | Start stopped container | | d | Remove stopped container (confirm) |

Containers

Same per-container actions as Stacks. Enter always opens the detail panel.

Detail panel

Same container actions as the list/tree (l, s, r, k, S, d, x) plus:

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | e | Toggle environment variables (expanded / collapsed) | | ↑ ↓ | Scroll | | Esc | Close |

Log viewer

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | f | Toggle follow mode | | g | Scroll to top | | G | Scroll to bottom, re-enable follow | | ↑ / k | Scroll up (disables follow) | | Esc | Close |

Images & Volumes

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | ↑ ↓ / j k | Navigate list | | d | Delete unused item (confirm) |

Confirm dialog

| y / Y to confirm · n / N / Esc to cancel | |-----------------------------------------------------|

Troubleshooting

permission denied on the Docker socket (Linux)

Add your user to the docker group, then log out and back in:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Windows: cannot connect to the daemon

By default docktui tries the named pipe //./pipe/docker_engine. If that fails, enable TCP in Docker Desktop (Settings → General → Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS) and run:

DOCKER_HOST=tcp://localhost:2375 docktui

docktui requires a 256-color (or truecolor) terminal

Your $TERM is too narrow. Set it explicitly or use a modern terminal:

TERM=xterm-256color docktui

The 'docker' CLI is not on your PATH

You hit x (shell into container) but the docker binary isn't installed or isn't on PATH. Install Docker CLI or skip the x action — everything else works without it.

Development

git clone https://github.com/0xShady/docktui.git
cd docktui
npm install

npm run dev            # run from source with ts-node
npm run build          # compile to dist/
npm start              # run compiled output

npm test               # vitest, one-shot
npm run test:coverage  # generate ./coverage/index.html
npm run lint
npm run format

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the pre-PR checklist and CHANGELOG.md for release history.

License

MIT © Achraf El Fadili