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Arugula

Swarm themes

The swarm can draw every pane four ways. Pick one under Theme in the swarm’s bar: Blocks, City, Hive or Timeline. The choice is kept in this browser, and Cluster by (project, machine, kind, session or owner) works the same in each.

Nothing in a theme is decoration. Every size, color, light and shape is one thing a pane reports: what kind it is, how long its command has run, whether it’s printing, whether it failed, whether it needs you, and who else has it open. Each theme but blocks has How to read the … in its corner, a key to what it draws.

In all four, hovering over a pane shows its last lines, clicking it opens it, and right-clicking it opens its menu. Fit brings everything back into view.

What’s shared

Section titled “What’s shared”
  • Color is kind: shell, build, test, agent, server, logs, editor, pull request or issue, the same colors in every theme.
  • What needs you takes the color of its reason, as its card on the rail does: purple for an agent’s question, red for a failure, amber for a pane waiting for input, green for something that finished.
  • Grey means the pane’s machine isn’t connected right now; it comes back by itself.
  • What runs until stopped (a server, a log tail, an editor) has no running time to show, so each theme draws it at a fixed size, set apart from commands that finish.

Blocks

Section titled “Blocks”

The default. Every pane is a tile, colored by kind and lit by activity. Each tile is pulled toward its cluster’s centre as hard as it’s busy, so busy panes sit in the middle and idle ones drift to the edge.

  • A pane that needs you flares in place, then flies to its card on the rail, with a line back to its cluster.
  • A folded top-right corner: its thread has messages you haven’t read (yellow: one mentions you).

Scroll to zoom and drag to pan; click a cluster’s name to dive into it.

City

Section titled “City”

The swarm in 3D. Each cluster is a city block, its rows are machines (or projects, when you cluster by machine), and each pane has a lot in pane order, so it keeps its address until you regroup.

  • Height is how long its command has run, on a log scale, so a 10-second test and a 40-minute agent turn both read. When the command ends, the building keeps that height.
  • A lit roof: the command is still running.
  • Windows are its output: scrolling while it prints (faster for more), still when it printed lately, dark when it’s quiet.
  • Shape is lifecycle: a box finishes, a drum runs until stopped, a hexagon is an agent, a pentagon an editor, and a flat slab a pull request or issue.
  • A red roof: its last command failed.
  • A beam in the reason’s color: it needs you. It grows taller the longer it waits.
  • A marker over it: a teammate has it open, and a cone while they type.

Drag to orbit, right-drag to pan, and scroll to zoom; click a block’s name to fly to it. On a phone, drag to orbit and pinch to zoom.

Hive

Section titled “Hive”

One hexagonal cell per pane, packed into a comb per cluster. It’s flat, so it reads well on a phone. Cells spiral out from the middle by machine and pane number, and keep their place until you regroup.

  • The fill is how long its command has run, full at an hour: bright while it runs, faded once it’s done. What runs until stopped is full and hatched.
  • The edge is its output: pulsing while it prints (faster for more), faint for a while after, dark when it’s quiet.
  • A red rim: its last command failed.
  • Needs you: the cell fills with the reason’s color and says how long it has waited. Its glow spills onto its neighbours, wider the longer it waits.
  • A ring: a teammate has it open (dashed and turning while they type).
  • A dot on its top-right edge: its thread has messages you haven’t read (yellow: one mentions you), with how many when you zoom in.

Timeline

Section titled “Timeline”

One lane per pane, under its cluster’s name, with time running left to right and now at the right edge. The last 40 minutes fit on screen, so it answers “what happened while I was away?”.

  • A bar is a command: as long as it ran, colored by kind. Its stripes are what it printed, denser for more bytes a second.
  • A red cap: that command failed.
  • The running command is brighter, with a lit leading edge while it grows; its last four minutes are shaded by how much it printed.
  • A thin line: something that runs until stopped.
  • A band in the reason’s color: it needs you, from when it started waiting until now, with how long past the now edge (“waits 4m”).
  • A dot at the now edge: a teammate has it open (ringed while they type). A square past it: its thread has messages you haven’t read.

The past comes from each machine’s command history (the last 45 minutes, refreshed every half minute), and from what finishes while the view is open. Drag to scroll back in time or down the lanes, and scroll to zoom.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”