jolt CLI

A beautiful terminal-based battery and energy monitor for macOS and Linux.

Built for laptop users who want to understand what's draining their battery. Provides real-time insights into power consumption, process energy usage, and battery health - all in a clean, themeable TUI.

Features

• Battery Status - Real-time charge percentage, charging state, time remaining, battery health, and cycle count
• Power Monitoring - Total system power draw with CPU and GPU breakdown
• Process Energy Tracking - Processes sorted by energy impact with color-coded severity
• Collapsible Process Groups - Expand parent processes to see children consuming energy
• Historical Graphs - Track battery percentage and power draw over time
• Theme Support - Dark and light themes with automatic system detection
• Keyboard Navigation - Full keyboard control with help dialog
• Process Management - Kill energy-hungry processes with confirmation

Requirements

macOS

• macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later
• Apple Silicon (optimized) or Intel Mac

Linux

• Linux kernel 3.13+ (for RAPL power metrics)
• Laptop with battery
• Intel or AMD CPU (for power metrics)

Note: On Linux, see Linux setup guide for required permissions.

Installation

Install Script (Recommended)

curl -fsSL https://getjolt.sh/install.sh | bash

Automatically detects your platform (macOS or Linux) and architecture.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/jordond/jolt.git
cd jolt/cli
cargo build --release
./target/release/jolt

Via Cargo

cargo install jolt-tui

Homebrew (coming soon)

brew install jordond/tap/jolt

Usage

# Run with default settings (1 second refresh)
jolt

# Faster refresh rate (500ms)
jolt --refresh-ms 500

# Force dark theme
jolt --theme dark

# Force light theme
jolt --theme light

# Show help
jolt --help

CLI Options

Keyboard Shortcuts

Building from Source

Prerequisites

macOS

1. Install Rust via rustup:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
   

2. Ensure you have Xcode Command Line Tools:

   xcode-select --install
   

Linux

1. Install Rust via rustup:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
   

2. Install build dependencies:

   Ubuntu/Debian:

   sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config
   

   Fedora:

   sudo dnf install gcc pkg-config
   

   Arch:

   sudo pacman -S base-devel
   

Build

# From the cli directory
cd cli

# Debug build (faster compilation, slower runtime)
cargo build
./target/debug/jolt

# Release build (slower compilation, optimized runtime)
cargo build --release
./target/release/jolt

Development

# Run in development mode
cargo run

# Run with arguments
cargo run -- --refresh-ms 500 --theme dark

# Check for errors without building
cargo check

# Run with warnings
cargo clippy

How it Works

jolt collects system metrics using platform-native APIs:

macOS

• Battery Data - Parsed from pmset -g batt and ioreg -r -c AppleSmartBattery
• Power Metrics - Real-time energy data via IOReport framework (CPU, GPU, ANE power in watts)
• System Theme - Detected via defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle

Linux

• Battery Data - Read from /sys/class/power_supply/BAT*/
• Power Metrics - Intel RAPL interface at /sys/class/powercap/intel-rapl/
• GPU Power - hwmon interfaces (Intel/AMD)
• System Theme - Follows environment settings

Cross-Platform

• Process Info - Collected via the sysinfo crate
• Terminal UI - Built with ratatui and crossterm

License

MIT