A polished terminal system monitor with tide-inspired live charts, accurate system metrics, and theme-aware ASCII motion.

Overview

Tidewatcher is a Ratatui-powered terminal dashboard for watching CPU, memory, disks, network activity, and the busiest local processes in one place. It is designed to feel more intentional than a raw diagnostics tool without losing the details that matter when you are actually tracking system behavior.

The current build already includes live history, process actions, multiple curated themes, and a theme-aware animated tide scene that changes with the visual style you choose.

Highlights

• Whole-machine CPU, per-core usage, and top-process visibility in one dashboard
• Memory readouts that distinguish in-use, reusable-available, free, and swap
• Per-mount disk activity and per-interface network activity with rolling history
• Sortable process table with a dedicated detail modal plus TERM and KILL actions
• Theme-aware animated ASCII art integrated into the process panel
• Sakura Tide is now the default visual theme for fresh installs
• Built-in themes: Ocean Current, Harbor Fog, Sakura Tide, Matcha Glass, Lantern Ember, Moonlit Koi, and Winter Plum
• Native macOS fallbacks for RAM and per-process CPU accuracy where sysinfo is not sufficient
• Responsive layout that degrades cleanly on smaller terminals instead of falling apart

Why Tidewatcher

• It stays terminal-native. No daemon, no browser tab, no detached UI stack.
• It keeps the dashboard expressive without turning the numbers into decoration.
• It is already structured around real operator workflows: scan the overview, sort processes, inspect a target, act on it, move on.

Install

Build from source

cargo build --release
./target/release/tidewatcher

Run in development

cargo run

For normal use, prefer cargo run --release or the compiled binary from target/release/.

Configuration

Tidewatcher reads the first configuration file it finds in this order:

1. $TIDEWATCHER_CONFIG
2. ./tidewatcher.toml
3. ~/.config/tidewatcher/config.toml

See tidewatcher.toml.example for a starter file.

Supported keys

Key	Default	Notes
refresh_interval_ms	2000	Metric refresh cadence, clamped to 250..10000
animation_interval_ms	180	Tide animation cadence, clamped to 80..1000
history_capacity	60	Samples retained per history series, clamped to 20..240
theme	Sakura Tide	Any built-in theme name
process_sort	cpu	cpu, memory, io, or name
disk_limit	4	Max visible disk or mount rows, clamped to 1..8
network_limit	4	Max visible network rows, clamped to 1..8

Unknown keys are ignored with a startup warning. Invalid numeric values are clamped after parsing.

Example

refresh_interval_ms = 1500
animation_interval_ms = 180
history_capacity = 90
theme = "Sakura Tide"
process_sort = "cpu"
disk_limit = 4
network_limit = 4

Controls

Key	Action
q	Quit
Esc	Quit, or close process detail if it is open
Left / Right / Tab / Shift+Tab	Switch focused panel
Up / Down	Move focus, or move process selection when the process panel or detail modal is active
t	Cycle theme
+ / =	Refresh faster
-	Refresh slower
s	Cycle process sort when the process panel or detail modal is active
Enter	Open process detail for the selected process, or close it when already open
x	Send TERM to the selected process from detail mode
k	Send KILL to the selected process from detail mode

Metric Notes

The top CPU gauge is whole-machine average usage from 0-100%.

Process CPU% is per-process core percentage sampled over the refresh interval. It will not sum directly to the global CPU gauge and can exceed 100% for multi-threaded processes.

In the memory panel, RAM means in use, Avail means reusable, Free means unallocated, and Swap means swap currently in use.

On macOS, Tidewatcher uses native Mach VM counters and proc_taskinfo CPU deltas to avoid misleading memory and process CPU readings.

Platform Notes

Platform	Status	Metrics Path	Notes
macOS	Supported	sysinfo + native fallbacks	Current primary development target. Uses Mach VM counters and proc_taskinfo CPU deltas for better RAM and per-process CPU accuracy.
Linux	Expected to work	sysinfo	No macOS-only blockers in the main app path. Uses the standard cross-platform metrics path.
Windows	Unvalidated	sysinfo	No dedicated Windows tuning yet. Process signal actions may be unavailable depending on platform support.
WSL	Likely workable	sysinfo	Should behave more like Linux than native Windows, but it has not been validated in this repo.

• macOS is the most tuned platform today.
• Linux should run through the normal cross-platform metrics path, but it still needs explicit validation.
• Windows and WSL are not being advertised as fully supported yet.

Project Docs

• Product requirements: PRD.md
• Example configuration: tidewatcher.toml.example

Brand Assets

• Social preview card: assets/tidewatcher-social-preview.svg
• Terminal screenshot frame: assets/tidewatcher-terminal-frame.svg
• Logo lockup: assets/tidewatcher-logo.svg
• Logo mark: assets/tidewatcher-mark.svg

Status

Tidewatcher is already functional for daily terminal monitoring, but it is still early in the project lifecycle. The current emphasis is polish, packaging, deeper process controls, and broader platform validation.