Exporting and Recording

Grafatui can export the current dashboard view as SVG, PNG, or both. It can also record changed dashboard states into a timestamped frame bundle.

Export a Snapshot

Press e to export the current visible dashboard.

Output files are written under --export-dir:

grafatui --export-dir ./grafatui-exports --export-format both

Supported formats:

• svg
• png
• both

Record Changed Frames

Press Ctrl+E to start recording. Press Ctrl+E again, or quit with q, to finalize the bundle.

Grafatui records only changed rendered states:

grafatui-recording-<timestamp>/
  frame-000001.svg
  frame-000002.svg
  manifest.json

If --export-format png or both is selected, matching PNG files are written too.

Export and recording failures are shown in the TUI instead of ending the session. Files are replaced atomically, so a failed write does not leave a partially written export in place.

An active recording is finalized once when Grafatui quits normally, returns an application error, receives Ctrl-C, or receives SIGTERM/SIGHUP on Unix. The same shutdown path restores the cursor, leaves the alternate screen, disables mouse capture, and disables raw mode on normal returns and panic unwinding. Cleanup is best effort so one failing terminal operation does not skip the remaining ones.

When external annotations are visible, their panel targeting and applied tag filter affect the markers written to SVG/PNG exports and changed-frame recordings. Any active inline annotation details remain exportable. Annotation modal chrome is omitted from exports and recordings, and draft-only tag-filter edits do not create recording frames; a frame can change after the filter is applied or cleared.

Recording Limits

Limit the number of changed frames in one recording:

grafatui --record-max-frames 300

When the frame cap is reached, Grafatui stops writing new frames and records completed_reason = "capped" when finalized.

Manifest

Each recording writes a manifest.json file with metadata for downstream tooling:

{
  "version": 1,
  "format": "svg",
  "changed_only": true,
  "frame_count": 2,
  "max_frames": 300,
  "completed_reason": "stopped",
  "viewport": { "width": 100, "height": 40 },
  "frames": [
    {
      "index": 1,
      "elapsed_ms": 0,
      "files": ["frame-000001.svg"]
    }
  ]
}