docktui

A lightweight terminal UI for Docker. Manage containers, images, and volumes from your terminal — Compose-aware, no mouse required.

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