The live console

anole console shows a running Anole app from another terminal: its logs, requests per route, recent 5xx answers, connections, databases, HTTP/3, runtime numbers, resolved configuration and routes. In development, typing c and Enter in the terminal the app runs in opens the same screen there.

$ zig build run
info(anole): listening on http://localhost:3000 (h1, h2c)
info(anole): console: `anole console api` attaches (socket /run/user/1000/anole/api.48213.sock)
info(anole): press c + Enter for the live console

Opening it

• Any time: anole console [name|pid|socket path] from a terminal of the same user on the same machine (ssh -t host anole console for a remote one). Ctrl-C, /quit or /exit leave the console; the app keeps running.
• Development: c + Enter. Esc (empty command line, no popup) or /quit returns to plain logs; Ctrl-C stops the server as it always did. The hotkey is on only in development, when stdin and stderr are terminals, outside systemd, containers and CI, and never in tests. An app that reads stdin itself sets console.keys = false.
• Windows: not yet. anole console says so; use WSL2 or Docker.

Until the first log line arrives, the log view shows a small anole logo (when the window has room for it).

anole console --list lists the apps, --snapshot <view> prints one view (conns, db, ws, h3, runtime, config, routes, errors) as JSON without a terminal, --wedge-timeout <s> sets when an app counts as stuck. Exit codes: 5 no app found, 6 refused (busy, version, permission), 7 not a terminal, 8 not available on this OS.

Commands

Command	Shows or does
/logs [level=] [scope=] [route=] [id=] [grep=]	live log tail; filters run in the server
/requests [sort=] [window=10s|60s]	per route: req/s, p50, p99, 4xx/s, 5xx/s
/errors [route=]	the last 256 5xx answers; Enter jumps to /logs id=...
/conns	per executor: connections, streams, tasks, run queue; listeners
/db [name]	per database: pool size, open, idle, in use
/ws	WebSocket counts (not collected yet: shows a notice)
/h3	per HTTP/3 endpoint counters
/runtime	RSS, CPU, threads, descriptors, versions, the binding’s language metrics
/config	resolved environment and deployment, options (secrets redacted), .env files (names and counts), features
/routes [text]	method, pattern, flags
/tasks	needs a task registry in the runtime; not available yet
/reload	reload TLS certificates from their files (as SIGHUP)
/drain	asks, then drains and stops the server
/restart	asks, then the zero-downtime hand-off (as SIGUSR2)
/full-restart [--kill]	asks, then drops everything and restarts
/help, /quit, /exit

Keys: Enter runs, Tab completes, Esc closes the popup then clears the input, Up/Down history, PgUp/PgDn/Home/End scroll, Ctrl-L redraws, Ctrl-Z suspends. NO_COLOR turns colour off; TERM=dumb refuses the interactive console.

What is collected, and what it costs

• Log records: warnings and errors are always kept (4 MiB in 16 rings, no per-record allocation); info and debug only while a console shows logs. Producers never wait for a console: a console that stops reading sees a dropped N notice, not a slow server.
• 5xx answers: always kept (256 entries); one status compare per request.
• Per-route numbers (counts, status classes, a 98-bucket latency histogram) are collected only while a console shows /requests: one relaxed load per request otherwise. Latency of a 5xx kept while nobody collects is 0.
• Connections, streams, tasks and run queues come from the runtime’s always-on gauges; database pools are read when /db asks.

The control socket

A Unix stream socket <runtime dir>/anole/<name>.<pid>.sock: the runtime directory is $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (Linux), /run for root on Linux, $TMPDIR on macOS, else /tmp/anole-<uid>. The directory is mode 0700 and owned by the user (anything else disables the console with a warning and the server runs on), the socket 0600, and a peer of another user (root excepted) is refused. There is no TCP; remote is ssh -t. At most 4 consoles at once. Protocol: newline-delimited JSON, proto: 1.

It is on by default in every environment (off in tests, under deployment lambda, on Windows); off with console.enabled = false or ANOLE_CONSOLE=0. Containers: docker exec -it c anole console; from the host mount the directory and run anole console /path/api.sock. Kubernetes: kubectl exec -it pod -- anole console.

/reload, /drain, /restart and /full-restart need a confirm token (the terminal asks y/N first), and console.read_only = true refuses all of them. /restart and /full-restart need console.allow_restart (default: on in development, off in production). /restart needs the hand-off (.process = init.minimal; not on Windows or under the C ABI). /full-restart re-executes the process in place (same PID, arguments, directory and environment), so systemd, Docker and pm2 see the same process; when the app does not answer, or with --kill, the CLI sends SIGKILL and waits for the supervisor or relaunches the app (output appended to <socket dir>/<name>.out).

Options

Zig ServerOptions.console	JSON console	Default
enabled	enabled	on (see above)
name	name	ANOLE_CONSOLE_NAME, else the executable’s name
socket	socket	the directory above
allow_restart	allow_restart	development on, production off
read_only	read_only	false
keys	(none: bindings own stdin)	development on a terminal
log_buffer	log_buffer	4 MiB, 0 for none
errors_kept	errors_kept	256
max_routes	max_routes	256
	runtime	shown in the status line, e.g. node 22.11.0

-Dconsole=false compiles the server side out (off in -Dprofile=minimal).

Node and Python

The bindings set console.name and console.runtime, read c + Enter themselves and call anole_console_open (The C ABI); the screen runs on libanole’s thread, so the language’s event loop never blocks. While it is open, console.log and print show in /logs as stdout. The anole binary ships in each package (npx anole console, python -m anole console).

Troubleshooting

• A terminal left raw after a crash by signal: run reset.
• “not a private directory”: set console.socket to a path in a 0700 directory of yours.
• Several apps with the same name: pick by pid.