ros-tap 0.1.0

Zero config telemetry tap for any ROS 1 or ROS 2 robot on your network. Discover, subscribe, stream. No ROS install required.

ros_tap

Zero config telemetry tap for any ROS robot on your network.

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ros_tap discovers ROS 1 and ROS 2 robots on your network, subscribes to their topics, and streams telemetry wherever you want. No ROS install required. It's just a tap. You decide where the data goes.

Install

pip install ros_tap          # ROS 2 support (via CycloneDDS)
pip install 'ros_tap[s3]'    # + S3 output
pip install 'ros_tap[all]'   # everything

Usage

Scan: see what's on the network

ros_tap scan                         # rich terminal dashboard
ros_tap scan --json                  # machine readable output
ros_tap scan --domain 42             # specific ROS 2 domain
ros_tap scan --ros1-uri http://robot:11311  # specific ROS 1 master

Record: stream telemetry

ros_tap record                                # stream to stdout as JSONL
ros_tap record -o ./data                      # write to local directory
ros_tap record -o s3://my-bucket/robots       # upload to S3
ros_tap record -c power,actuators             # filter by category
ros_tap record -t /battery,/joint_states      # filter by topic name
ros_tap record | jq '.data'                   # pipe to anything
ros_tap record -o ./data -c power,imu,lidar   # local, filtered

Info: check your setup

ros_tap info    # shows installed backends, env vars, version

How it works

ROS 2: Joins the DDS network as a passive participant using CycloneDDS. Discovers all nodes, topics, and types via DDS multicast. No ROS 2 install needed.

ROS 1: Queries the ROS Master's XML RPC API at ROS_MASTER_URI. Gets the full node/topic graph in one call.

Auto detect: ros_tap tries both and merges results. Works in mixed ROS 1 + ROS 2 environments with ros1_bridge.

Adding a subscriber does not interfere with any existing software on the robot. DDS pub/sub is like tuning into a radio station. Other listeners and the broadcaster are unaffected.

Output formats

All sinks write JSONL (one JSON object per line):

{"ts": 1718000000.0, "node": "/turtlebot", "topic": "/battery_state", "type": "sensor_msgs/BatteryState", "ros": 2, "data": {...}}

Sink	Flag	Notes
stdout	-o - (default)	Pipe to jq, grep, curl, whatever
Local	-o ./path	Auto rotating JSONL files (50 MB default)
S3	-o s3://bucket/prefix	Buffered uploads, NDJSON content type

Auto detected categories

ros_tap classifies topics into categories for filtering:

Category	Example topics
power	/battery_state, /battery
actuators	/joint_states, /motor_states
diagnostics	/diagnostics
odometry	/odom
imu	/imu
lidar	/scan
camera	/camera/image_raw
command	/cmd_vel
thermal	/temperature
system	/cpu_monitor, /memory_monitor

Why not ros2 doctor?

ros2 doctor checks if your ROS 2 installation is healthy. ros_tap checks if your robot is healthy. Different things entirely.

	ros2 doctor	ros_tap
Checks	ROS 2 install, DDS config, QoS	Live robot telemetry
Requires ROS 2	Yes	No
ROS 1 support	No	Yes
Output	Text report	JSONL stream
Use case	"Is my dev env broken?"	"Is my robot alive?"

License

Apache 2.0