Terminal Viewer

autotel-terminal is a terminal-native trace viewer built with Ink (React for CLIs). It streams OpenTelemetry spans and shows them as traces with a span tree, search, and waterfall view.

Installation

npm install autotel-terminal autotel

Standalone CLI

Run as a standalone OTLP receiver:

npx autotel-terminal

Then point your app at it:

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/json \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:4319 \
node app.js

CLI Options:

• -p, --port <port>: Port (default: 4319)
• -H, --host <host>: Host (default: 127.0.0.1)
• -t, --title <title>: Dashboard title

In-Process Usage

Wire StreamingSpanProcessor directly to your app:

import { init, trace } from 'autotel';
import { renderTerminal, StreamingSpanProcessor } from 'autotel-terminal';

const stream = renderTerminal({ title: 'my-app' });

init({
  service: 'my-app',
  spanProcessors: [new StreamingSpanProcessor(stream)],
});

// Spans appear in the terminal as they complete

Dashboard Controls

Key	Action
/	Search by span name
e	Toggle error-only filter
↑/↓	Navigate traces/spans
Enter	Expand selected trace
l	Toggle logs view
?	Help overlay
q	Quit

Features

• Real-time span streaming
• Parent/child span tree per trace
• Search and error filtering
• Span detail view with attributes
• Waterfall visualization
• Relative time labels

Examples

• example-terminal: Interactive terminal dashboard with live span streaming, error filtering, and P95 latency.

OTLP Endpoints (Standalone)

Endpoint	Signal
POST /v1/traces	Traces
POST /v1/logs	Logs
POST /v1/metrics	Metrics
GET /healthz	Health check