bosun

bosun

A fast terminal UI for Docker and Podman that stays out of your way. Bordered panels, one-key actions, live logs you can filter and copy, and containers, images, volumes, and networks all a keypress away. It is the tool I wanted while babysitting a dozen containers across side projects, so I built it.

Why

I spend half my day in docker ps, docker logs -f, docker exec, over and over. The web dashboards are heavy and the CLI makes me retype the same three commands. bosun keeps everything one keypress away and never leaves the terminal.

It is not trying to replace Docker Desktop. It is a fast keyboard cockpit for the containers you already have running.

Wondering how it stacks up against lazydocker, ctop, oxker, or dozzle? There is an honest comparison.

Install

You need a running Docker daemon. That is it for the Homebrew route.

Homebrew:

brew install psychedelicdevx/tap/bosun

With Go (1.24 or newer):

go install github.com/psychedelicdevx/bosun/cmd@latest

Or build it yourself:

git clone https://github.com/psychedelicdevx/bosun.git
cd bosun
go build -o bosun ./cmd
./bosun

Usage

Run it:

bosun

It connects to your local daemon through the usual socket, lists every container, and hands you the keyboard.

You can point it at another daemon. bosun follows your active docker context, so if you have run docker context use it connects there without any extra setup. DOCKER_HOST overrides that, and a --host flag overrides everything:

bosun --host ssh://you@server
bosun --host tcp://10.0.0.5:2375

unix://, tcp://, and ssh:// endpoints all work. For ssh, bosun shells out to your own ssh, so it honors your keys, agent, and ~/.ssh/config exactly like ssh you@server does. Nothing to configure in bosun. The remote just needs the docker CLI on its PATH, which it has wherever Docker is installed.

Podman

bosun talks to the Docker API directly, so it works with Podman too. Start Podman's API service and point bosun at its socket:

podman system service --time=0 &
bosun --host unix://$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock

Listing containers and images, streaming and filtering logs, and the lifecycle actions all work against Podman. Live stats depend on your Podman host having cgroups set up the usual way; if your setup cannot report them, bosun says so instead of guessing. The list on the left is what you navigate. The panel on the right shows details, and switches to logs or stats when you ask for them. Whichever panel has focus gets a green border, same idea as lazygit.

If you run Compose stacks, the list groups containers by project so you can see each stack together and collapse the ones you are not touching right now. Containers that are not part of a project sit in their own group at the bottom. With the cursor on a project header, s, x, and r start, stop, or restart the whole stack at once. It operates the containers that already exist rather than recreating them from the compose file, so it stays fast and works the same over a remote daemon.

Press 1 through 4 to switch between four views. Containers is the default. Images shows every image with its size, lets you remove ones you do not need, and prunes the dangling <none> images that pile up after rebuilds. Volumes lists your named volumes with their driver and mountpoint. Networks lists your networks with their driver, scope, subnet, and gateway. In the volumes and networks views, d removes the selected one after asking.

If the daemon is down or the socket is not readable, bosun tells you in plain language instead of dumping a stack trace.

Want to try it without touching your real containers? Run bosun --demo for a self-contained sandbox with fake containers, logs, and stats. Handy for screenshots and for kicking the tires.

Keys

Logs follow along at the bottom while new lines arrive. Scroll up and it stops chasing so you can read, then it picks back up once you return to the bottom. Mouse and touchpad input is pane-aware: click tabs and rows to select them, click logs or stats to focus that pane, and scroll without momentum leaking into the container list. Press / while viewing logs to filter to just the lines that match, and y to copy what you are looking at to your clipboard. The copy uses the terminal's own clipboard escape, so it works over SSH too. The list refreshes itself every couple of seconds, so anything you change from another terminal shows up on its own.

Warnings and 4xx responses are highlighted in yellow; errors and 5xx responses are highlighted in red. If a log or stats stream ends, bosun keeps the last data visible and lets you reconnect with enter. Resource refresh failures keep the last successful list on screen and label it as cached rather than pretending it is empty.

Themes

Press T to cycle color themes while running, or pick one at launch:

bosun --theme dracula

Built in themes: default, catppuccin, dracula, tokyonight, nord, gruvbox, rosepine, solarized, monokai, mono. Run bosun --themes to list them, or set BOSUN_THEME in your shell to make one stick.

How it works

The whole thing is one static binary. Under the hood:

• Bubble Tea drives the event loop, with Lip Gloss for the panels and colors.
• The official Docker Go SDK talks to the daemon.
• Logs and stats each run in their own goroutine and feed the UI through channels, so streaming never blocks a keypress. Closing a panel cancels its stream cleanly, no leaked goroutines.

Status

Usable every day. Containers, images, volumes, and networks, compose grouping with stack-level actions, live logs with filter and copy, stats, shell exec, the lifecycle actions, and a name filter all work, against Docker or Podman, local or remote over ssh://. Next on the bench: live refresh through the Docker events API instead of polling.

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

License

MIT