tailgrid 0.3.0

Multi-tile tail viewer for terminal

tailgrid

Multi-tile tail viewer for terminal in under 280 lines of code

A minimal, dependency-free Python tool to monitor multiple log files simultaneously in a single terminal window. Like tail -f, but for up to 9 files at once in a clean tiled layout. Features an interactive file picker and session manager. Tested under Ubuntu and macOS.

Quick start

From PyPI:

pip install tailgrid
tailgrid

From source:

git clone https://github.com/ferreirafabio/tailgrid.git
cd tailgrid
python -m tailgrid

That's it. The interactive menu guides you through selecting files.

Main menu

No Enter key needed - just press the number:

  tailgrid - Multi-file tail viewer

    1) Browse directory
    2) Add paths manually
    3) Resume session
    q) Quit

  Select [1-3]:

Browse directory

Select 1 to browse a directory and pick files interactively:

  Directory path: /var/log/

The file picker lets you select multiple files:

 Select files from: /var/log/
 ─────────────────────────────────────
 [x] auth.log
 [ ] boot.log
 [x] syslog
 [ ] kern.log
 [x] dpkg.log

 3/9 selected │ ↑↓/jk nav │ SPACE sel │ a all │ ENTER ok │ q quit

File picker controls:

Key	Action
↑/↓ or j/k	Navigate
Space	Select/deselect file (moves to next)
a	Select/deselect all
Enter	Confirm selection
q	Cancel

Layout is auto-selected based on file count:

• 1 file → Single
• 2 files → Choose vertical or horizontal
• 3-4 files → 2×2 grid
• 5-9 files → 3×3 grid

Session restore

Select 3 from main menu to restore one of the last 10 sessions:

  Recent sessions:

    0) 2 file(s), 10 lines
       • /var/log/syslog
       • /var/log/auth.log
    1) 4 file(s), 10 lines
       • ~/app/logs/error.log
       • ~/app/logs/access.log
       • ~/app/logs/debug.log
       • ~/app/logs/info.log

  Select [0-1]:

Sessions are stored in ~/.config/tailgrid/sessions.json.

Manual layout selection

Select 2 to manually enter paths and pick a layout:

  Select layout:

    1) Single        2) Vertical      3) Horizontal    4) Grid
       ┌─────┐          ┌──┬──┐          ┌─────┐          ┌──┬──┐
       │  1  │          │ 1│ 2│          │  1  │          │ 1│ 2│
       └─────┘          └──┴──┘          ├─────┤          ├──┼──┤
                                         │  2  │          │ 3│ 4│
                                         └─────┘          └──┴──┘

  Layout [1-4]: 4

  Enter 4 file path(s):

    [1] /var/log/syslog
    [2] /var/log/auth.log
    [3] ~/app/logs/error.log
    [4] ~/app/logs/access.log

  Starting with 4 file(s)...

Viewer controls

Key	Action
+ / =	Show more lines
- / _	Show fewer lines
r	Force refresh
q	Quit

Features

• Zero dependencies - Uses only Python 3.10+ standard library (curses, readline)
• Interactive file picker - Browse directories and select files with spacebar
• Up to 9 tiles - Support for 3×3 grid layout
• Auto-layout - Automatically picks best layout based on file count
• Session history - Saves and restores last 10 sessions
• Instant menus - No Enter key needed for menu selections
• Tab completion - Auto-complete file paths when entering manually
• Live updates - Polls files for changes (100ms interval)
• Terminal resizing - Automatically adapts to window size changes
• Clean UI - Minimalistic curses interface with unicode box-drawing

Tests

pip install -e ".[dev]"
python -m pytest tests/ -v

File structure

.
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── pyproject.toml
├── tailgrid
│   ├── __init__.py         # Package exports
│   └── __main__.py         # All the code (~280 lines)
└── tests
    ├── __init__.py
    └── test_tailgrid.py    # 21 tests

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Linux or macOS (curses is not available on Windows)

License

Apache-2.0