Splash adds beautiful, adaptive colors to make logs easier to read.

Features

• Auto-detection of 16 popular log formats including programming language stack traces
• Mixed formats - handles multiple log formats in a single stream
• Search highlighting with string or regex patterns
• Adaptive colors that work with both light and dark terminals
• Streaming performance - processes logs in real-time
• Zero configuration - No config. Just pipe.

Screenshots

Splash supports many standard log formats and output from popular languages like go (test logs), java (exceptions), and python (tracebacks)

go test -v ./...	go test -v ./... | splash
Syslog Logs	Scan for strings easily with splash --search
Apache format logs	splash -r "08:3\d" to highlight all timestamps that match the regex pattern

Installation

Install from Homebrew (Recommended)

brew tap joshi4/splash
brew install splash

For Linux users

curl -fsSL https://install.getsplash.sh | sh

For Go users

go install github.com/joshi4/splash@latest

Get Started

The easiest way to use Splash is to pipe any log output through it:

Basic Usage

echo '{"timestamp":"2025-01-19T10:30:00Z","level":"ERROR","message":"Connection failed","service":"api"}' | splash

Highlight errors

{ echo '{"level":"INFO","msg":"Starting up"}'; echo '{"level":"ERROR","msg":"Connection failed"}'; echo '{"level":"WARN","msg":"Slow query"}'; } | splash -s "ERROR"

Create HTTP logs and highlight error status codes

{ echo '192.168.1.1 - - [19/Jan/2025:10:30:00 +0000] "GET /api HTTP/1.1" 200 1234'; echo '192.168.1.2 - - [19/Jan/2025:10:30:01 +0000] "POST /api HTTP/1.1" 404 567'; } | splash -r "[45]\d\d"

Generate and monitor continuous output

while true; do echo "$(date -Iseconds) INFO Server is healthy"; sleep 2; done | splash

Create a mix of log formats to test detection

{
  echo 'Jan 19 10:30:00 localhost myapp[1234]: INFO Application started'
  echo '{"timestamp":"2025-01-19T10:30:01Z","level":"WARN","message":"High memory usage"}'
  echo '127.0.0.1 - - [19/Jan/2025:10:30:02 +0000] "GET /health HTTP/1.1" 200 15'
} | splash

Use with curl to monitor API responses (requires jq)

curl -s httpbin.org/json | jq -c . | splash

🔧 Command Line Options

splash [flags]

Flags:
  -s, --search string    Highlight lines containing this text
  -r, --regexp string    Highlight lines matching this regex pattern
  -h, --help            Show help information

Note: You cannot use both -s and -r flags simultaneously.

Programming Language Features

Splash provides specialized support for debugging and development outputs from popular programming languages:

Format	Example
JavaScript Stack Traces	Error<br> at sum (/home/dev/Documents/trace.js:2:17)<br> at start (/home/dev/Documents/trace.js:11:13)<br> at Object.<anonymous> (/home/dev/Documents/trace.js:16:1)
Go Stack Traces	goroutine 1 [running]:<br>main.Example(0x2080c3f50, 0x2, 0x4, 0x425c0, 0x5, 0xa)<br> /Users/bill/Spaces/Go/Projects/src/github.com/goinaction/code/temp/main.go:9 +0x64
Java Exceptions	Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero<br> at com.example.MyClass.divide(MyClass.java:10)<br> at com.example.MyClass.calculate(MyClass.java:6)
Python Exceptions	Traceback (most recent call last):<br> File "example_trace.py", line 21, in <module><br> function_a()<br>ZeroDivisionError: division by zero
Go Test Output	=== RUN TestReconcileCreatesServiceAccounts<br>--- PASS: TestName(0.00s)<br>=== RUN TestSportReconcilerCreatesNamespace

Standard Log Formats

Splash automatically detects and colorizes these conventional log formats:

Format	Example
JSON	{"timestamp":"2025-01-19T10:30:00Z","level":"ERROR","message":"DB failed"}
Logfmt	timestamp=2025-01-19T10:30:00Z level=error msg="DB failed" service=api
Apache Common	127.0.0.1 - - [19/Jan/2025:10:30:00 +0000] "GET /api HTTP/1.1" 200 1234
Nginx	127.0.0.1 - - [19/Jan/2025:10:30:00 +0000] "GET /api HTTP/1.1" 200 1234 "-" "Mozilla/5.0"
Syslog	Jan 19 10:30:00 hostname myapp[1234]: ERROR: Database connection failed
Rsyslog	Aug 8 00:15:23 your-macbook-pro syslogd[347]: ASL Sender Statistics
Go Standard	2025/01/19 10:30:00 ERROR: Database connection failed
Rails	[2025-01-19 10:30:00] ERROR -- : Database connection failed
Docker	2025-01-19T10:30:00.123456789Z ERROR Database connection failed
Kubernetes	2025-01-19T10:30:00.123Z 1 main.go:42] ERROR Database connection failed
Heroku	2025-01-19T10:30:00+00:00 app[web.1]: ERROR Database connection failed

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/joshi4/splash.git
cd splash
go build

FAQ

I'm using a supported log format but it's not being detected. What should I do?

Sometimes logs are written to stderr instead of stdout. Try redirecting stderr to stdout:

your_command 2>&1 | splash

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature-name
3. Make your changes and add tests
4. Run tests: go test ./...
5. Submit a pull request