CLI Machines Docker Ps

`ed machines docker ps`

Lists containers, merging docker ps -a with a one-shot docker stats so each row carries live CPU and memory next to its state and ports. It is the group's default subcommand, so ed machines docker <machine> runs it.

ed machines docker ps [--json] [--all] <machine>

Arguments

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`<machine>`	machine name, ssh alias, id, or any unambiguous prefix	required	Which machine to ask.

Options

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`--json`	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout instead of the table. Long form only, there is no `-j`.
`--all`, `-a`	flag	off	Include containers that are not running. Without it only `running` and `restarting` containers are listed.
`--help`, `-h`	flag	off	Print the help for this command on stdout and exit 0.

The table prints its headings even when nothing matches:

$ ed machines tuf docker ps
ID  NAME  IMAGE  STATE  CPU  PORTS

$ ed machines tuf docker ps --all
ID            NAME                          IMAGE                               STATE   CPU  PORTS
b556d7fef23e  lobe-chat                     lobehub/lobe-chat:latest            exited  -
f8968a8b81e5  open-webui                    ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main  exited  -
47e37ace9821  noveum-local-db-postgres-1    postgres:17-alpine                  exited  -
efe6aaaae124  noveum-local-db-clickhouse-1  clickhouse/clickhouse-server:24.12  exited  -
5477a5a28510  noveum-local-db-redis-1       redis/redis-stack:latest            exited  -

With the same containers running, the CPU and PORTS columns fill in and the stopped rows are gone:

$ ed machines tuf docker ps
ID            NAME                          IMAGE                               STATE    CPU    PORTS
b556d7fef23e  lobe-chat                     lobehub/lobe-chat:latest            running  0.0%
f8968a8b81e5  open-webui                    ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main  running  0.3%   3000 → 8080/tcp
47e37ace9821  noveum-local-db-postgres-1    postgres:17-alpine                  running  2.7%   5433 → 5432/tcp

CPU reads - when docker stats had nothing to say about that container, which is every stopped container and, briefly, one that has just started.

`--json` shape

A top-level array, one object per container, in the order docker listed them. This is a real document trimmed to one entry:

[
  {
    "command": "\"docker-entrypoint.sh postgres\"",
    "composeProject": "noveum-local-db",
    "composeService": "postgres",
    "cpuPercent": null,
    "createdAt": "2026-08-05 22:28:30 +0530 IST",
    "health": "none",
    "id": "47e37ace98211bfcf5d14f4f6e80e4d76b09c30914cb8e8ecf7e14cc029f237e",
    "image": "postgres:17-alpine",
    "memLimitBytes": null,
    "memUsedBytes": null,
    "name": "noveum-local-db-postgres-1",
    "names": [
      "noveum-local-db-postgres-1"
    ],
    "ports": [],
    "shortID": "47e37ace9821",
    "state": "exited",
    "status": "Exited (0) 2 hours ago"
  }
]

What the fields mean:

id is the full container id, because docker ps runs with --no-trunc. shortID is its first twelve characters, which is what the table prints and what every other verb here accepts.
name is the first of names; names holds all of them, since a container can carry several. A container with no name at all falls back to shortID.
state is one of created, running, paused, restarting, exited, dead, removing, or unknown when docker reports something newer than that list. status is docker's own sentence, such as Exited (0) 2 hours ago.
health is none, starting, healthy or unhealthy. It comes from docker's HealthStatus field, falling back to reading (healthy), (unhealthy) or health: starting out of status. A container with no health check reports none.
ports is an array of strings, each rendered as 5433 → 5432/tcp with a literal arrow, or as 5432/tcp alone when the port is exposed but not published. Do not expect ->. Duplicate IPv4 and IPv6 mappings are collapsed into one entry, and the list is sorted by host port, with unpublished ports last.
composeProject and composeService come from the com.docker.compose.project and com.docker.compose.service labels, and are null on a container compose did not create.
createdAt is docker's own string, 2026-08-05 22:28:30 +0530 IST. It is not ISO 8601, unlike dates elsewhere in ed --json.
command is docker's quoted form, so the value usually contains its own quotation marks.
cpuPercent, memUsedBytes and memLimitBytes come from docker stats --no-stream and are null for anything not running. cpuPercent is docker's own figure, summed across cores, so a busy container reads above 100.

Examples

ed machines tuf docker ps
ed machines tuf docker ps --all --json
ed machines tuf docker ps --json | jq -r '.[] | select(.health == "unhealthy") | .name'
ed machines tuf docker ps --json | jq -r '.[] | "\(.name) \(.ports | join(","))"'

Behaviour notes

Read only. The remote command is docker ps -a --no-trunc --format '{{json .}}' followed by docker stats --no-stream, sent as one line with a separator between them, with a 45 second ceiling. docker stats has its stderr thrown away, so its noise never lands in the parse, and a container it says nothing about is still listed with its stats null. Its exit status is the status of the whole line, though, so a docker stats that fails outright takes the container list down with it and exits 1.

--all is a client-side filter, not docker ps without -a: the machine always returns every container and ed drops the ones that are neither running nor restarting. The consequence worth remembering is that a paused container does not appear without --all.