lazycontainer

A lazydocker-style terminal UI for Apple's container CLI.

Browse, inspect, and drive your containers, images, volumes, networks, machines, registries, and the builder — all from one fast, keyboard-driven TUI.

brew install pzep1/lazycont/lazycontainer

Install

brew install pzep1/lazycont/lazycontainer

Requires macOS with Apple's container CLI installed and its system service started. Other ways to run ↓

 lazycontainer  ● running                                        updated 16:57:03
╭──────────────────────────────╮╭─────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ▌ Containers (3)  state/cpu/mem ││ Config Logs Stats Env Ports Mounts Health  │
│ web       running  2.1%   45MB ││ 12:07:01 server listening on :8080          │
│ db        running  0.4%   60MB ││ 12:07:04 GET /   200  1ms                    │
│ cache     stopped         -    ││ 12:07:06 GET /api 200 12ms                  │
│   Services (2)   state/cpu/mem ││ ▏following live — End re-attaches            │
│ api       running  0.6%   38MB ││                                             │
│ worker    stopped         -    ││                                             │
│   Images (6)       size  used ││                                              │
│ nginx              1.8.2  142M ││                                             │
│   Builder (running)     state ││                                              │
│   Volumes (2)      size  used ││                                              │
│   Networks (1)     mode  used ││                                              │
│   Machines (1)          state ││                                              │
│   System (running)    status ││                                               │
╰──────────────────────────────╯╰─────────────────────────────────────────────╯
 refreshed · u auto:on            space menu · ? help · q quit · s start · l logs

Every resource stacks as a panel down the left, lazydocker-style, and they are all visible at once — no accordion. The focused panel gets the accent bar, the largest share of vertical space, and the action keys; tab / shift+tab (or 1–9) move focus between panels, while the main panel on the right tracks the selected item.

Highlights

• ⚡ Live everything — stream container, machine, and system logs in-pane with autoscroll, watch CPU%, memory, network, and disk I/O as live ASCII graphs, and auto-refresh lists, stats, and status. CPU% is derived from Apple's cumulative counters so you get a real live percentage.
• 🗂️ Tabbed main panel — flip a selected container between Config · Logs · Stats · Env · Ports · Mounts · Health · Top · Inspect with [ / ]; other resources get the tabs that fit them.
• 📊 Fleet overview strip — a pinned summary line shows container counts, mean CPU%, memory in use, disk used/reclaimable, and builder state at a glance.
• 🔗 In-use badges — images, volumes, and networks show a ●N count of how many containers reference them, so you can see what's safe to prune.
• ⌨️ Drive it from the keyboard — start/stop/restart/kill containers, exec shells, copy & export filesystems, pull/build/tag/push/save/load images, and manage volumes, networks, machines, registries, and the builder. Jump straight to any pane with 1–9.
• 🧩 Compose without compose — Apple's container CLI has no compose, so lazycontainer brings the Services panel anyway: drop a compose.yaml beside your project and bring services up/down, start/stop/restart, and recreate them — individually or the whole stack — straight from the TUI.
• 📦 Bulk actions — a B menu to stop/kill/remove every container or prune images, volumes, and networks in one keystroke (with confirmation).
• 🍎 Apple-native extras — view a container or machine's VM boot logs (ctrl+b), and see registered local DNS domains and system properties right in the System pane.
• 🧭 Discoverable — a context-aware actions menu (space), a bulk actions menu (B), a scrollable keybinding reference (?), and screen modes (+ / _: normal → half → fullscreen).
• 🎨 Yours to shape — custom commands (flat or per-context, with interactive attach), theme/border/layout, log window, and refresh interval — all reloaded live when you edit the config.
• 🖱️ Mouse-friendly — click panes and rows, scroll with the wheel, filter lists with /.

Full feature list

• browse containers, compose services, images, volumes, networks, image builder status, machines, registry logins, and Apple container system diagnostics
• orchestrate a compose.yaml stack: bring services up/down, start/stop/restart, and recreate them — per service or whole-project — in dependency order, with no docker compose required
• switch the main panel between per-resource tabs ([ / ]), or jump straight to a pane with 1–8
• stream container, machine, and system logs live with autoscroll, or follow them full screen
• view a container's or machine's VM boot logs (ctrl+b)
• watch CPU%, memory, network, and disk I/O as live ASCII graphs, plus a current CPU/memory/network/disk/PID summary — CPU% is derived live from Apple's cumulative cpuUsageUsec counter
• view container environment variables and running processes (Env and Top tabs)
• expand the main panel with screen modes: normal, half, fullscreen
• context-aware actions menu, a bulk-actions menu (B), and a scrollable keybinding reference
• run bulk actions: stop/kill/remove all containers, or prune unused images, volumes, and networks
• see registered local DNS domains and system properties in the System pane
• open a container's first published port in the browser
• filter resource lists across names and metadata, and hide noisy resources with a config ignore list
• inspect selected resources (raw JSON)
• scan container CPU and memory directly in the container list
• run ad-hoc or named custom Apple container commands without leaving the TUI
• open the lazycontainer config file from the TUI (changes reload live)
• view image variant and layer history
• run one-off commands in selected running containers
• export a selected container filesystem as a tar archive
• copy files or folders between a selected container and the local filesystem
• build local images from a Dockerfile or Containerfile
• start, stop, and delete the image builder
• retag images; save and load image archives; push images to a registry
• log in to and out of registries
• pull images, create stopped containers, and run images with ports, env vars, mounts, networks, and command args
• start, restart, stop, kill, and delete containers
• create, configure, stop, delete, and set default machines
• create volumes and networks
• start and stop Apple container services
• prune stopped containers and unused images, volumes, or networks
• delete images, volumes, networks, or machines
• auto-refresh system status, lists, one-shot stats, and the active logs pane

More ways to run

The Homebrew formula taps pzep1/homebrew-lazycont and builds lazycontainer v0.5.2 from the latest tagged release.

Or run from source (needs Go 1.26+ to match go.mod):

go run ./cmd/lazycontainer                      # run directly
go build -o bin/lazycontainer ./cmd/lazycontainer    # or build a local binary

The formula depends on Homebrew's Apple container package. See docs/homebrew.md for tap maintenance and release steps.

Keybindings

Press ? in the app for the same reference, scrollable. Press space for a menu of every action available on the selected resource — no memorization required.

Global

Key	Action
tab / shift+tab	Switch resource pane (containers, services, images, builder, volumes, networks, machines, registries, system)
← / → or h	Previous / next resource pane
1–9	Jump to resource pane (1=containers … 9=system)
[ / ]	Previous / next main-panel tab
+ / _	Cycle screen mode: normal, half, fullscreen
space · B	Open the context-aware actions menu · bulk actions menu
/ · esc	Filter the list · clear filter or close command output
: · ;	Run an ad-hoc · named custom container command
o · r · u	Open config in $VISUAL/$EDITOR/vi · refresh · toggle auto-refresh
? · q / ctrl+c	Toggle help · quit

Selection & main panel

Key	Action
up / k, down / j	Move selection
mouse click / wheel	Select a tab or row · scroll the panel or list
i / enter	Open the Inspect tab for the selected resource
l	Open the Logs tab and stream logs (containers, machines, system)
f	Follow logs full screen until the command exits
pgup/pgdn, home/end	Scroll the panel (end re-enables log autoscroll)

Containers

Key	Action
s · ctrl+r · x · K	Start · restart · stop · kill
e · X	Open /bin/sh · run a one-off command and show its output
ctrl+b	View the container's VM boot logs
c · E	Copy files <src> <dest> (:/path = selected container) · export filesystem to a tar
w	Open the first published port in the browser
B	Bulk actions: stop / kill / remove all containers

Services (compose)

Drop a compose.yaml (or docker-compose.yml) beside your project — the Services pane lists its services with the state of the container backing each.

Key	Action
u · U	Up the selected service · up the whole project (dependency order)
d · D	Down the service · down the whole project (with confirmation)
R	Recreate the service (down, then up)
s · x · ctrl+r	Start · stop · restart the service's container
l · e · i	Stream logs · open a shell · inspect the service's container

Services are translated into container run (with the service's ports, env, volumes, networks, and command), stop, and delete calls — Apple's CLI has no native compose, so lazycontainer does the orchestration. Build-only services are container build-tagged then run.

Images

Key	Action
a · b	Pull by reference · build as <tag> [context-dir]
R · N	Run detached · create stopped, e.g. name=web p=8080:80 env=K=V -- cmd
t · P	Tag with a new reference · push to its registry
O · L	Save to · load from an OCI tar archive

Volumes · networks · machines · registries

Key	Action
C	Create a volume <name> [size] or network <name> [subnet] from its pane
M · m · S	Create a machine <image> [name] · configure cpus=4 memory=8G · set default
e · ctrl+b	Open a shell in the selected machine · view its VM boot logs
g	Log in to a registry <server> [username]
B	Bulk actions: prune unused volumes or networks (volumes/networks pane)

Builder, system & shared

Key	Action
s · x	Start / stop the builder or Apple container services
d	Delete the selected resource, or log out of a registry — with confirmation
p · B	Prune unused resources · bulk actions menu — with confirmation

The System pane also surfaces Apple-native local DNS domains and system property settings alongside status, disk usage, and versions.

Destructive actions require a second confirmation key. In the Logs tab, output follows live and sticks to the bottom; scroll up (pgup, wheel) to detach autoscroll and press end to re-attach.

Config

lazycontainer reads optional settings from ~/Library/Application Support/lazycontainer/config.json on macOS. An existing config under ~/Library/Application Support/lazycont/ is still picked up until you create one in the new directory. Everything is optional — the simplest config just adds custom commands:

{
  "commands": [
    { "name": "Images as JSON", "args": ["image", "list", "--format", "json"] },
    { "name": "Selected container logs", "args": ["logs", "--tail", "200", "{container}"] }
  ]
}

Press ; and enter a command number, exact name, or unique part of a name; each entry runs as container <args>. Args can use {container}, {image}, {volume}, {network}, {machine}, {registry}, or {resource} (the selected item in the active pane).

Per-context commands, attach, and appearance

Beyond the flat commands list, the config accepts per-context custom commands, an interactive attach flag, and appearance/behavior settings:

{
  "customCommands": {
    "containers": [
      { "name": "Shell", "args": ["exec", "-it", "{container}", "/bin/sh"], "attach": true }
    ],
    "images": [
      { "name": "Image as JSON", "args": ["image", "inspect", "{image}"] }
    ]
  },
  "logs": { "tail": 200, "since": "5m" },
  "refreshIntervalMs": 5000,
  "ignore": ["buildkit", "infra-"],
  "gui": {
    "sidePanelWidth": 0.3333,
    "screenMode": "normal",
    "border": "rounded",
    "theme": { "activeBorderColor": "39", "selectedLineBgColor": "57" }
  }
}

Setting	Meaning
customCommands	Per-pane commands (containers, images, volumes, networks, machines, registries, builder, system). All commands appear in the ; picker; placeholders scope them to the relevant resource.
attach	true hands the terminal to the command (interactive shells) instead of capturing output.
logs.tail / logs.since	Lines requested when a Logs tab opens · system-log window.
refreshIntervalMs	Overrides the auto-refresh interval.
ignore	Substrings; any container, image, volume, network, machine, or registry whose name (or, for containers, image) contains one is hidden from every list.
gui.sidePanelWidth	Sidebar width as a fraction of the screen.
gui.screenMode	Startup mode: normal, half, fullscreen.
gui.border	rounded, single, double, or hidden.
gui.theme	Colors accept 256-color codes or names.

Press o in the TUI to create this file if needed and open it in your editor — edits are reloaded live.

License

Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.