Rosight

Rosight = ROS + sight. A keyboard-driven terminal cockpit for ROS 2.

Browse the live ROS 2 graph — messages, nodes, services, actions, parameters, TF, bags, interfaces — and live-plot any numeric field, all from one screen without a mouse. Built for SSH, tmux, robot consoles.

📖 Docs: https://deyuf.github.io/rosight/

What's inside

Nine tabs, keyboard-driven, all on one screen:

#	Tab	What you can do
1	Messages	Filter the topic table, Enter to subscribe, the right pane shows live hz / bw / jitter and the message tree. Press i for static topic info (types, publishers, QoS). Press v to open a live image preview for sensor_msgs/Image / CompressedImage topics.
2	Nodes	Discover every node, drill into its publishers, subscribers, service servers/clients, action servers/clients.
3	Services	List services with types. c opens a call form (planned).
4	Actions	List action servers with types. Goal monitor (planned).
5	Params	Browse parameters per node, get / set with type awareness.
6	Plot	Multi-series live plot — scalar time-series and 1D-array snapshots (e.g. LaserScan ranges). Pick a numeric leaf or numeric array in the message tree and press p / Enter. Pause / window-scale / CSV export.
7	TF	Auto-built frame tree from /tf and /tf_static.
8	Bags	ros2 bag record / play / info. The header tells you which key stops the recording while it's running.
9	Interfaces	Browse msg / srv / action definitions of every interface package on the system.

Image rendering uses the terminal's native graphics protocol when available (kitty / sixel / iTerm2) and falls back to Unicode half-blocks otherwise — see docs/plotting.md for the support matrix.

Screenshots

Nodes (2)

Services (3)

Actions (4)

Bags (8) — recording state

Cross-cutting features:

• Auto-QoS — subscriber profile is negotiated to match every publisher of a topic (BEST_EFFORT vs RELIABLE, TRANSIENT_LOCAL, etc.), so sensor topics "just work".
• Theme persistence — pick a theme via Ctrl+P → Change theme; it survives restarts (stored next to your config in a small state.toml).
• Runtime domain switch — :domain 5 reconnects the rclpy backend on a new ROS_DOMAIN_ID without restarting the app.
• Live notifications — important actions (subscribed, started recording, switched domain) show as toasts; nothing important hides in a covered status bar.
• No ROS required for the UI — the package imports cleanly without rclpy, so you can dev / unit-test on cloud machines. Run with --no-ros to stay offline.

Install

From PyPI:

pip install rosight

Then, in any terminal where you want to use it:

source /opt/ros/<distro>/setup.bash
rosight

If you maintain multiple distros, source the one whose rclpy should drive discovery before launching. See the installation guide for the recommended --system-site-packages venv layout that keeps the system rclpy reachable while pip manages everything else.

From source (for development):

git clone https://github.com/deyuf/rosight
cd rosight
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick start

# launch (inherits ROS_DOMAIN_ID from env)
rosight

# pick a domain explicitly + log to file
rosight --domain-id 5 --log-file /tmp/rosight.log

# UI-only mode, no rclpy needed (great for theme / layout dev)
rosight --no-ros

Inside the app:

• ? — keyboard reference overlay
• : — command palette (topic <filter>, plot <topic> <path>, record, domain <N>, quit)
• 1–9 — jump to a tab
• q or Ctrl+C — quit
• r — manual refresh

Plotting workflow (the question new users ask most):

1. Messages tab, cursor over a topic, Enter to subscribe (focus auto-jumps to the message tree)
2. Use arrow keys / Space to expand fields in the tree
3. Cursor on a numeric leaf (int / float), press p — series is added and the Plot tab opens

Documentation

Full docs site: https://deyuf.github.io/rosight/

Topic	Page
Installation per distro	Install
Daily usage	Usage
Keybindings	Keybindings
Configuration	Configuration
Plotting deep-dive	Plotting
Architecture	Architecture
Contributing	Development
FAQ	FAQ

Project layout

src/rosight/
├── app.py             # Textual App, panel registry, global key bindings
├── cli.py             # argparse entry point
├── config.py          # TOML config loader + state.toml persistence
├── ros/
│   ├── backend.py     # central rclpy facade (lifecycle, sub mgmt, domain switch)
│   ├── introspection.py  # dynamic message-type resolution
│   ├── qos.py         # plain-data QoS + auto-negotiation
│   └── stats.py       # hz / bw monitors
├── utils/
│   ├── datatable.py   # row-cursor preservation + last-column auto-fit
│   ├── ringbuffer.py  # thread-safe bounded buffers
│   ├── path.py        # message field-path parser
│   └── formatting.py  # human-readable display helpers
└── widgets/           # one file per panel + status bar / help / palette

Tech stack & rationale — short version

• Python 3.10+ + rclpy (first-class ROS 2 client, dynamic message introspection via rosidl_runtime_py)
• Textual ≥ 0.79 (modern async TUI, CSS-like styling, headless pilot tests — that's how the 80-test suite stays meaningful for a TUI)
• plotext for ANSI plotting in the Plot tab
• hatch + ruff + mypy + pytest-asyncio for the dev loop
• MkDocs Material for the docs site
• rclpy runs on its own MultiThreadedExecutor daemon thread so DDS spinning never blocks the Textual main loop. See DESIGN.md for the full reasoning.

Status

Beta. Discovery, subscription, plotting, TF, bag record/play, theme persistence, runtime domain switch — all working. Auto-forms for service call and action goal are on the roadmap.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.