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Dockyard Wiki
Use the Tab key to switch between container and image views.
When you first launch Dockyard, you'll see your container list. Use j/k or arrow keys to navigate up and down. The interface shows you each container's name, image, status, ports, and real-time CPU/memory usage.
Press Enter on any container to see detailed information in the left pane, including environment variables, volumes, networks, and labels. Press l to stream logs in real-time, or e to drop into an interactive shell inside the container (Dockyard will suspend the TUI and hand control to your shell, then restore everything when you exit).
You can control containers with s (stop), t (start), r (restart), p (pause), u (unpause), and d (force remove). Press f to toggle between viewing all containers or just running ones.
Press Shift+Tab to switch to the image view. Here you'll see all Docker images on your system with their repository names, tags, IDs, sizes, and creation dates. The list auto-refreshes every 30 seconds.
Navigate with j/k or arrow keys, then press Enter or Space to inspect any image's full details in the left pane. You can sort images by pressing s (cycles through creation date ascending/descending and size ascending/descending) or filter dangling images with f.
To download a new image from Docker Hub, press p while in the image view. A dialog will appear asking for the image name. Type something like nginx:latest, postgres:15, redis:alpine, or ubuntu:22.04 and hit Enter. Dockyard will first check if the image already exists locally, and if not, it will proceed with the pull.
Dockyard will start pulling the image and stream the download progress in real-time in the bottom-right pane. You'll see each layer being downloaded just like running docker pull from the command line, but the UI stays responsive so you can navigate around and check other things while it downloads. When the pull completes, the image list automatically refreshes and your new image appears.
This is useful when you want to run a new service (like pulling nginx to set up a web server), test a different version of something (pulling node:20 for the latest Node.js), or prepare images before creating containers from them.
Select an image and press d to remove it (you'll get a confirmation prompt). If the image is in use by containers, you can force removal with D (Shift+d), though this will also prompt for confirmation to prevent accidents.
Dockyard offers flexible performance modes to optimize resource usage based on your needs:
-
Activation: Toggle with the
tkey. -
Optimization Strategy:
- Viewport-Aware Polling: Only fetches stats for containers currently visible on your screen. This drastically reduces the load on the Docker daemon when managing 50+ containers.
- Minimalist UI: Switches to a streamlined stats view, reducing the CPU cycles required for rendering complex graphs and detailed history.
- Lower Overhead: Internal processing is tuned to favor TUI responsiveness over background data granularity.
- Ideal for: Low-end VPS instances, single-core servers, or when managing a massive container fleet.
- Full Visibility: Polls stats for all running containers, even those off-screen, ensuring history graphs are populated for everything.
- Detailed Stats: Provides the full CPU/Memory breakdown with high-resolution graphs.
- Standard Refresh: Balanced polling and rendering for a smooth, feature-rich experience.
| Key | Preset | Description |
|---|---|---|
1 |
Max Performance | Turbo mode + manual refresh + minimal stats |
2 |
Balanced | Normal mode + 5-second interval + minimal stats |
3 |
Full Detail | Normal mode + 1-second interval + detailed stats |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
t |
Toggle Turbo/Normal mode |
m |
Toggle stats view (detailed/minimal) |
[ |
Decrease refresh interval |
] |
Increase refresh interval |
P |
Show performance metrics (CPU/memory usage) |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
? |
Help menu |
Tab |
Switch focus (Containers) or Switch Help Tab (Help Menu) |
Shift+Tab or v
|
Switch between Containers and Images views |
q |
Quit |
R |
Refresh containers and images manually |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
↑↓ or jk
|
Navigate containers |
Enter or Space
|
View detailed container info |
i |
View resource history graphs |
l |
View container logs |
e |
Launch interactive shell (/bin/bash or /bin/sh) |
r |
Restart container |
s |
Stop container |
t |
Start container |
p |
Pause container |
u |
Unpause container |
d |
Remove container (force) |
f |
Toggle filter (all/running) |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
↑↓ or jk
|
Navigate images |
Enter or Space
|
Inspect image details |
s |
Toggle sort (Creation Date ▲/▼, Size ▲/▼) |
f |
Toggle dangling image filter |
p |
Pull new image from registry |
d |
Remove image |
D |
Force remove image |
-
▶(green) – Running -
■(red) – Stopped -
‖(yellow) – Paused
Dockyard monitors container health checks for running containers. Docker health checks are periodic tests that verify container functionality and can be configured in Dockerfiles using the HEALTHCHECK instruction.
Health status indicators:
-
✓ healthy(green) – Health check is passing -
✗ unhealthy(red) – Health check is failing -
⚠ starting(yellow) – Health check is initializing -
-(gray) – No health check configured -
✗ failing(n)(red) – Health check failing with n consecutive failures
The container list title shows a health summary with counts of healthy (✓), starting (⚠), and unhealthy (✗) containers across all running instances.
- Sort indicators (
▲/▼) appear in table headers showing current sort direction - Stats marked as
(stale)are older than 10 seconds - Real-time progress bars show ongoing operations like image pulls
- Confirmation prompts appear for destructive actions
If you get permission errors connecting to Docker, make sure your user is in the docker group:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER