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ROS 2 CLI Overview

Besides ros2 launch and ros2 run, DendROS colorizes the output of the most common ros2 introspection commands with the same group colors and badges. There's nothing extra to configure.

Command What's colored Page
ros2 node list Each node in its group color ros2 node list
ros2 node info The node, and every topic, service and action by the node that provides it ros2 node info
ros2 topic list Topics by their publisher's group, with publisher/subscriber counts ros2 topic list
ros2 service list Services by owning node; standard ROS 2 services dimmed or hidden ros2 service list
ros2 action list Actions by owning node ros2 action list
ros2 param list Node headers colored, parameter names dimmed ros2 param list
ros2 param describe Parameter name in the node's color, labels dimmed ros2 param describe

Every other ros2 subcommand is passed to the real ros2 binary untouched.

Where the colors come from

  1. A running launch. Every ros2 launch/ros2 run of a package with a dendROS.yaml writes its node-to-color map to ~/.config/dendROS/node_colors.yaml. CLI commands in any other terminal read it, so ros2 node list matches the colors of the launch you're looking at, including nodes discovered by their logger name.
  2. Installed configs. Without a running launch, DendROS reads the dendROS.yaml files of every package on AMENT_PREFIX_PATH.

Nodes that match no group follow the unmatched settings.

Settings that apply to all CLI commands

Setting Key Description
Show tag (CLI) show_tag_cli Show [TAG] badges in CLI output. Independent of badges in launch output.
Tag style tag_style normal or inverted badges, shared with launch output.
Ignore bold ignore_bold Strip bold from every color (terminal compatibility).

Command-specific settings (show_default_services, topic_sort) are described on each command's page. Show tag (CLI) and the command-specific settings are in the CLI tab of dendros config; Tag style and Ignore bold are in the Output tab.

Notes

  • dendros disable and DENDROS_DISABLE=1 turn off CLI colorization too, see Enable & Disable.
  • If the output is piped or redirected, it's still colorized. Use DENDROS_DISABLE=1 for plain text.