TL;DR — Quick Summary

tailspin highlights log files with zero config. Auto-detects IPs, dates, UUIDs, HTTP methods, log levels, and paths with colorful output.

tailspin makes any log file readable with automatic syntax highlighting. Zero config required.

Installation

# Cargo
cargo install tailspin

# Homebrew
brew install tailspin

# Arch
pacman -S tailspin

Usage

# Highlight a log file
tspin /var/log/syslog

# Follow mode (like tail -f)
tspin -f /var/log/nginx/access.log

# Pipe from any command
kubectl logs my-pod | tspin
docker logs container-id | tspin
journalctl -u nginx | tspin

# Read from stdin
cat app.log | tspin

Auto-detected patterns

  • IP addresses — 192.168.1.1, ::1
  • Dates and timestamps — ISO 8601, syslog, RFC 3339
  • UUIDs — 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
  • HTTP methods — GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
  • Log levels — ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG
  • URLs — https://example.com/path
  • File paths — /var/log/syslog
  • Numbers — integers, floats, hex

Summary

  • tailspin: zero-config log file highlighter
  • Auto-detects IPs, dates, UUIDs, HTTP, log levels
  • Works with files and pipes
  • Follow mode for live tailing
  • Written in Rust — fast and reliable