prismtty 0.2.4

Fast terminal output highlighter focused on network devices and Unix systems
Documentation

PrismTTY

PrismTTY is a fast terminal output highlighter focused on network devices and Linux/Unix administration. It is intended as a ChromaTerm-style CLI wrapper with network-focused built-in profiles.

Website: prismtty.com.

Quick Demo

Animated PrismTTY terminal demo

Preview

Synthetic terminal previews using documentation-only hostnames and addresses:

Highlighted PrismTTY terminal output

Dynamic PrismTTY profile switching

What This Is / What This Is Not

PrismTTY is live terminal output highlighting for shells, SSH sessions, pipes, and logs. It sits in the terminal stream and adds color to prompts, interfaces, addresses, protocol state, counters, severity, and common vendor terms.

PrismTTY is not an NMS, a configuration management tool, a source of truth, a SIEM, a log platform, or a device inventory system. It does not log in to devices by itself, collect inventory, push configuration, or store operational data. It only highlights the terminal output already flowing through it.

Install

Homebrew

Install the latest release from the PrismTTY Homebrew tap:

brew install inxbit/tap/prismtty

The Homebrew formula installs prismtty, ptty, ct, bundled profiles, and shell completions. It also installs the required PCRE2 runtime dependency.

Cargo

Install from crates.io:

cargo install prismtty

Cargo builds PrismTTY from source and installs the command binaries. You need Rust 1.85 or newer plus PCRE2 and pkg-config available on your system.

For cargo install on macOS, install the native build dependencies first:

brew install pcre2 pkg-config

For cargo install on Debian/Ubuntu, install:

sudo apt-get install libpcre2-dev pkg-config

GitHub Release

Prebuilt release archives and checksums are available on the GitHub releases page.

Each release archive contains the binaries, license/readme files, example profiles, shell completions, and a .tar.gz.sha256 checksum.

Usage

ptty /bin/zsh
ptty ssh router.example.net
show-tech.txt | prismtty --profile cisco
prismtty profiles test cisco fixtures/cisco.txt
prismtty --reload

The recommended interactive workflow is to start one wrapped shell from your terminal profile:

ptty /bin/zsh

From inside that shell, run normal ssh, telnet, or console-wrapper commands. PrismTTY dynamically switches profiles from observed login banners and prompts, then keeps the selected remote profile locked for the session.

Use pipe mode for noninteractive output:

show-tech.txt | prismtty --profile cisco
journalctl -xe | prismtty --profile linux-unix

Important options:

  • -p, --profile <name> forces one or more profiles.
  • --no-auto-detect uses only generic unless profiles are forced.
  • --no-dynamic-profile disables profile switching inside wrapped interactive shells.
  • -c, --config <file> loads a ChromaTerm-compatible YAML file.
  • --strip-ansi removes existing ANSI before PrismTTY styles output.
  • --show-profile prints profile selections and transitions to stderr.
  • --local-echo locally echoes printable typed keys for no-echo device sessions.
  • --trace-io <file> appends hex-encoded PTY input/output plus rendered-output diagnostics.
  • -R, --rgb forces RGB color output.
  • --pcre is accepted for ChromaTerm compatibility; PCRE2 is always used.
  • -b, --benchmark prints per-rule timing and match-count data.
  • -r, --reload asks running PrismTTY sessions to reload config.

Profile commands:

prismtty profiles list
prismtty profiles show cisco
prismtty profiles validate ~/.config/prismtty/profiles.d/my-vendor.yml
prismtty profiles test cisco fixtures/cisco.txt

Configuration

PrismTTY loads built-in profiles first, then user rules. By default it checks:

  • ~/.chromaterm.yml
  • ~/.chromaterm.yaml
  • ~/.config/chromaterm/chromaterm.yml
  • ~/.config/chromaterm/chromaterm.yaml
  • ~/.config/prismtty/config.yml
  • ~/.config/prismtty/config.yaml
  • /etc/chromaterm/chromaterm.yml
  • /etc/chromaterm/chromaterm.yaml
  • ~/.config/prismtty/profiles.d/*.yml
  • ~/.config/prismtty/profiles.d/*.yaml

ChromaTerm-style rules are supported directly:

rules:
  - description: IPv4
    regex: '\b192\.0\.2\.\d+\b'
    color: f#00ffff

Native profile files add metadata:

profile:
  name: custom-router
  inherits: [generic]
  detection:
    - CustomOS
rules:
  - description: custom interface
    regex: '\bcust\d+/\d+\b'
    color: f#00ffff bold

Profiles under ~/.config/prismtty/profiles.d/ are first-class profiles: they appear in profiles list, can be shown with profiles show, can inherit built-in or other user profiles, and participate in auto-detection through their detection hints.

Feedback Wanted

Testing feedback is especially useful for Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Arista, Aruba CX, Versa, Linux/Unix, and custom profile files for other vendors, appliances, and terminal workflows.

More Information