[opensourcedex]

wtf is a free, open source cloud infrastructure management project written in Go and released under MPL-2.0. It has 17,093 GitHub stars, 864 forks and 107 open issues, and was last pushed 16 days ago. On this registry it ranks #9 of 43 tracked projects in Cloud Infrastructure Management, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 6 stars over the last 3 tracked days.

What is wtf?

WTF (also known as wtfutil) is a free, open-source personal information dashboard that runs in the terminal, built for developers and technical people who want at-a-glance access to important but infrequently consulted data without leaving the command line.

What it is

WTF is a terminal user interface application written in Go and released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. It presents a configurable dashboard inside the terminal, so the statistics a developer checks occasionally, such as status and metrics, appear on one screen instead of being scattered across separate commands, tabs, and browser windows. It is a stand-alone binary rather than a service, and the project is distributed through Homebrew, MacPorts, the Arch User Repository, go install, and prebuilt GitHub release binaries. It lives in the terminal TUI and DevOps tooling ecosystem, alongside other Go-based command-line utilities.

The concrete problem it addresses is the friction of repeatedly assembling the same small set of checks by hand. Rather than opening several tools and pages to answer routine questions, a user configures the dashboard once and reads everything in one place. The project is maintained by Linode-affiliated Linodians, with community channels on GitHub Discussions, Discourse at discuss.linodians.com, Bluesky, and Mastodon, and ongoing development funded through GitHub Sponsors.

Key capabilities

  • Terminal dashboard driven by a module system, where each widget supplies one source of at-a-glance information.
  • Installable as a single stand-alone binary, copied for example to /usr/local/bin/ and made executable with chmod a+x.
  • Distributed through package managers, including brew install wtfutil, the bleeding-edge tap brew install linodians/tap/wtfutil, sudo port install wtfutil on MacPorts, and the Arch User Repository.
  • Installable from source with go get -u github.com/wtfutil/wtf, followed by make install and make run.
  • Run-able via Docker, documented in the README's "Running via Docker" section.
  • Customizable exit message for contributors and sponsors, configurable through the project's sponsor exit-message page.
  • Active public discussion through GitHub Discussions, Discourse, Bluesky, and Mastodon channels.

Who uses it and how

  • Developers and technical operators who want a persistent terminal pane showing routine stats while they work in other windows.
  • Users on macOS and Linux, given the Homebrew, MacPorts, Arch User Repository, and binary distribution paths.
  • Contributors and sponsors, who additionally get the ability to set a personalized exit message shown when the application quits.
  • Go developers, who can build and run the project directly from source with the standard Go toolchain.
  • People running it inside containers, using the Docker workflow the README documents.

Getting started

The simplest path on macOS is brew install wtfutil, with the tap linodians/tap/wtfutil for the newest releases; alternatively install with go install github.com/wtfutil/wtf@latest, or download the latest binary from GitHub releases and place it on your PATH.

How it compares

No competing or paid products are named in the facts available for this listing, so no licence, self-hosting, or cost comparison against specific alternatives can be made. Within this registry, WTF stands alone as the terminal-based personal information dashboard entry.

When to use it — and when not to

Choose it if a configurable terminal dashboard running as a stand-alone local binary fits the way you work, and if you are comfortable installing through Homebrew, MacPorts, Go tooling, or a downloaded binary. Be aware that the project is mid-transition: the README warns it is preparing for v1.0 and will be renamed from WTF to Tessera, so naming, packaging, and documentation may shift. The listing also carries 107 open issues, and the README excerpt does not enumerate the available modules or describe the Docker image, so expect to consult wtfutil.com and the repository for module-level detail.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

GitHub Release Go Report Card Discourse Status Bluesky followers Mastodon followers Static Badge

:rotating_light: :warning: This project is going through some changes as we prepare for v1.0. This includes a rename from WTF to Tessera! Stay tuned! :warning: :rotating_light:

WTF (aka 'wtfutil') is the personal information dashboard for your terminal, providing at-a-glance access to your very important but infrequently-needed stats and data.

Used by thousands of developers and tech people around the world, WTF is free and open-source. To support the continued use and development of WTF, please consider sponsoring WTF via GitHub Sponsors.

Are you a contributor or sponsor?

Awesome! See here for how you can change the exit message, the message WTF shows when quitting, to something special just for you.

Installation

Installing via Homebrew

The simplest way from Homebrew:

brew install wtfutil

wtfutil

That version can sometimes lag a bit, as recipe updates take time to get accepted into homebrew-core. If you always want the bleeding edge of releases, you can tap it:

brew install linodians/tap/wtfutil

wtfutil

Installing via go install

Just run

go install github.com/wtfutil/wtf@latest

Installing via MacPorts

You can also install via MacPorts:

sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install wtfutil

wtfutil

Installing a Binary

Download the latest binary from GitHub.

WTF is a stand-alone binary. Once downloaded, copy it to a location you can run executables from (ie: /usr/local/bin/), and set the permissions accordingly:

chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/wtfutil

and you should be good to go.

Installing from Source

If you want to run the build command from within your $GOPATH:

# Set the Go proxy
export GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"

# Disable the Go checksum database
export GOSUMDB=off

# Enable Go modules
export GO111MODULE=on

go get -u github.com/wtfutil/wtf
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/wtfutil/wtf
make install
make run

If you want to run the build command from a folder that is not in your $GOPATH:

# Set the Go proxy
export GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"

go get -u github.com/wtfutil/wtf
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/wtfutil/wtf
make install
make run

Installing via Arch User Repository

Arch Linux users can utilise the wtfutil package to build it from source, or wtfutil-bin to install pre-built binaries.

Documentation

See https://wtfutil.com for the definitive documentation. Here's some short-cuts:

Modules

Modules are the chunks of functionality that make WTF useful. Modules are added and configured by including their configuration values in your config.yml file. The documentation for each module describes how to configure them.

Some interesting modules you might consider adding to get you started:

Getting Bugs Fixed or Features Added

WTF is open-source software, informally maintained by a small collection of volunteers who come and go at their leisure. There are absolutely no guarantees that, even if an issue is opened for them, bugs will be fixed or features added.

If there is a bug that you really need to have fixed or a feature you really want to have implemented, you can greatly increase your chances of that happening by creating a bounty on BountySource to provide an incentive for someone to tackle it.

Contributing to the Source Code

First, kindly read Talk, then code by Dave Cheney. It's great advice and will often save a lot of time and effort.

Next, kindly read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests.

Then create your branch, write your code, submit your PR, and join the rest of the awesome people who've contributed their time and effort towards WTF. Without their contributors, WTF wouldn't be possible.

Don't worry if you've never written Go before, or never contributed to an open source project before, or that your code won't be good enough. For a surprising number of people WTF has been their first Go project, or first open source contribution. If you're here, and you've read this far, you're the right stuff.

Contributing to the Documentation

Documentation now lives in its own repository here: https://github.com/wtfutil/wtfdocs.

Please make all additions and updates to documentation in that repository.

Adding Dependencies

Dependency management in WTF is handled by Go modules. Please check out that page for more details on how Go modules work.

Acknowledgments

The inspiration for WTF came from Monica Dinculescu's tiny-care-terminal.

WTF is built atop tcell and tview, fantastic projects both. WTF is built, packaged, and deployed via GoReleaser.

Frequently asked questions

Is wtf free to use?

wtf is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does wtf do?

The personal information dashboard for your terminal

What is wtf written in?

wtf is primarily written in Go. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/wtfutil/wtf, and it has 17,093 GitHub stars.