User manual

Camel TUI

Available as of Camel 4.21

Camel TUI is a terminal dashboard for developing, prototyping, and understanding Camel integrations. With over 40 screens organized across tabs, it makes your entire integration visible — you can browse your project source code with inline documentation, see your route topology, watch messages flow through processors, step through exchanges like scrubbing through a video timeline, inspect Kafka topics, run SQL queries against your DataSources, audit CVE vulnerabilities, and understand what Camel actually does with your routes. No more black box.

Key Features

Run anything — your own routes, the built-in examples, or an existing Spring Boot or Quarkus project (Getting started).
Write routes with help — a source editor that checks YAML, Java and XML routes as you type, completes endpoint options, fixes problems and shows the live run data of each line.
See the integration — the diagram from the architecture down to one route, with live message counts.
Watch and troubleshoot — live activity, message history, errors, traces, and deep dives into Kafka, SQL, memory leaks, JFR and CVEs.
Ask the AI — the AI panel (F8) with a hosted or a local model, and AI coding agents that see and drive the TUI over MCP and ACP.
Make it yours — themes, settings, the embedded shell, browser access and demo recording.

Getting Started

camel run my-route.yaml   # in one terminal
camel tui                 # in another: auto-discovers every running integration

camel tui .               # or open a project directory and press F10 to run it

No route yet? Press F2 and pick Run an example… to run one of the built-in examples on Camel Main, Spring Boot, Quarkus or JBang.

See Camel TUI Getting Started for each way to start, and for connecting existing Spring Boot and Quarkus applications.

Press F1 or ? on any screen for context-sensitive help. Keyboard shortcuts are always shown in the footer bar.

Tabs Overview

The TUI organizes information into tabs. Press number keys 1 through 0 to jump directly to any tab, or use Tab / Shift+Tab to cycle.

Key	Tab	What It Shows
1	Overview	All running integrations and infrastructure services. Start here.
2	Source	File explorer and editor for your project code, with Camel checks, completion and documentation.
3	Log	Real-time application logs with search and filtering.
4	Activity	Live exchange activity with elapsed times, endpoint sends, and failure tracking.
5	Diagram	Visual route topology with drill-down into individual routes.
6	Routes	Route list with message counts, throughput, and processing times.
7	Endpoints	All registered endpoints with usage statistics.
8	Inspect	Message history and tracing — step through exchanges processor by processor.
9	Errors	Failures with stack traces and exchange context.
0	More	30+ additional tabs organized by category (see below).

Key

Tab

What It Shows

Overview

All running integrations and infrastructure services. Start here.

Source

File explorer and editor for your project code, with Camel checks, completion and documentation.

Log

Real-time application logs with search and filtering.

Activity

Live exchange activity with elapsed times, endpoint sends, and failure tracking.

Diagram

Visual route topology with drill-down into individual routes.

Routes

Route list with message counts, throughput, and processing times.

Endpoints

All registered endpoints with usage statistics.

Inspect

Message history and tracing — step through exchanges processor by processor.

Errors

Failures with stack traces and exchange context.

30+ additional tabs organized by category (see below).

The More menu (key 0) opens a popup with tabs organized into groups:

Routing — Browse Endpoints, Consumers, HTTP, Inflight, Producers, Route Controller
Observability — Circuit Breaker, Health, JFR, Metrics, Network Services, Exchange Events, Recovery Tasks, OpenTelemetry Spans
AI — Ollama (listed when an Ollama server is detected)
Data — JDBC DataSource, Kafka, SQL Query, SQL Trace
JVM — Classpath, Heap Memory Histogram, Memory Usage, Memory Leak, Process, Startup, Threads
Project — Beans, Catalog, Configuration, CVE Audit, Maven Dependencies, Type Converters, Data Type Transformers

Tabs appear dynamically based on what the integration uses. For example, the Kafka tab appears when a Kafka component is in use, SQL tabs when a DataSource is present, Circuit Breaker when resilience4j is in use, Spans when OpenTelemetry is enabled, and JFR when camel-jfr is on the classpath. The TUI adapts to show only what’s relevant to your integration.

Tab badges show live counts — the Errors tab shows a red badge when errors exist and Routes shows the route count.

Two panels can be opened on top of any tab: F6 opens an embedded shell for running camel commands, and F8 opens the AI panel for asking questions about the running integrations.

More about the TUI

Page	What it covers
Getting Started	Your own routes, the built-in examples, opening a project, connecting Spring Boot and Quarkus applications
Source Editor	Reading and writing routes: checks as you type, quick fixes, fix with AI, completion, quick documentation, navigation, live run data
Diagram	The architecture, topology and route views, external endpoints, metrics
Observing Integrations	Activity, message history, errors, spans, process, HTTP probe, CVE audit, Kafka, SQL, memory leaks, JFR, catalog
AI Panel	AI providers, slash commands, project overview, AI log
Local Models	Ollama and OpenAI-compatible servers, the tool set for local models, what a question costs, the Ollama tab
AI Agents	MCP and ACP: what an AI agent can see and do, edits you confirm
Actions, Settings and Themes	The actions menu, embedded shell, themes, settings, browser access, recording demos

Page

What it covers

Getting Started

Your own routes, the built-in examples, opening a project, connecting Spring Boot and Quarkus applications

Source Editor

Reading and writing routes: checks as you type, quick fixes, fix with AI, completion, quick documentation, navigation, live run data

Diagram

The architecture, topology and route views, external endpoints, metrics

Observing Integrations

Activity, message history, errors, spans, process, HTTP probe, CVE audit, Kafka, SQL, memory leaks, JFR, catalog

AI Panel

AI providers, slash commands, project overview, AI log

Local Models

Ollama and OpenAI-compatible servers, the tool set for local models, what a question costs, the Ollama tab

AI Agents

MCP and ACP: what an AI agent can see and do, edits you confirm

Actions, Settings and Themes

The actions menu, embedded shell, themes, settings, browser access, recording demos

Keyboard Shortcuts

Global (All Tabs)

Key	Action
1 - 0	Jump to tab by number
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next / previous tab
F1 / ?	Context-sensitive help (toggle)
F2	Actions menu
F3	Switch between integrations (when multiple running)
Ctrl+F	Browse the selected integration’s source files (the Overview tab also has plain f)
F6 / Shift+F6	Toggle the embedded shell panel / cycle its height
F8 / Shift+F8	Toggle the AI prompt panel / cycle its height
F10	Run menu (run, stop, restart, kill)
Shift+F5	Take screenshot
Ctrl+C / Q / F2 → Quit	Quit
Esc	Close popup / go back / return to Overview

Key

Action

1 - 0

Jump to tab by number

Tab / Shift+Tab

Next / previous tab

F1 / ?

Context-sensitive help (toggle)

Actions menu

Switch between integrations (when multiple running)

Ctrl+F

Browse the selected integration’s source files (the Overview tab also has plain f)

F6 / Shift+F6

Toggle the embedded shell panel / cycle its height

F8 / Shift+F8

Toggle the AI prompt panel / cycle its height

F10

Run menu (run, stop, restart, kill)

Shift+F5

Take screenshot

Ctrl+C / Q / F2 → Quit

Quit

Esc

Close popup / go back / return to Overview

Source Tab

See the keyboard shortcuts of the Source Editor.

Command Line Options

Option Description Default

Option	Description	Default
`[name\|pid\|directory]`	Name, PID, or directory path of a Camel integration. When a directory is given, the TUI opens it as a project in the Source tab — you can browse the source code and run it with F10. When omitted, the TUI auto-discovers running integrations.
`--mcp`	Enable the embedded MCP server for AI agent access to the TUI.	`false`
`--mcp-port`	Port for the embedded MCP server.	`8123`
`--web`	Enable the browser-accessible terminal (WebSocket) server.	`false`
`--web-port`	Port for the web terminal server.	`8090`
`--refresh`	Screen refresh interval in milliseconds.	`100`
`--theme`	Color theme for this session (e.g., `dark`, `tokyo-night`, `dracula`). See Theme for the full list of 21 themes. Overrides the persisted `camel.tui.theme` preference when set.
`--record`	Replay a `.tape` file and record the session to an Asciinema `.cast` file.
`--record-size`	Size of the recorded terminal for `--record`, as `<cols>x<rows>`.	`200x50`
`--record-fps`	Frames per second captured by `--record`.	`10`
`--record-duration`	Maximum duration in milliseconds captured by `--record`.	`120000`

[name|pid|directory]

Name, PID, or directory path of a Camel integration. When a directory is given, the TUI opens it as a project in the Source tab — you can browse the source code and run it with F10. When omitted, the TUI auto-discovers running integrations.

--mcp

Enable the embedded MCP server for AI agent access to the TUI.

false

--mcp-port

Port for the embedded MCP server.

8123

--web

Enable the browser-accessible terminal (WebSocket) server.

false

--web-port

Port for the web terminal server.

8090

--refresh

Screen refresh interval in milliseconds.

100

--theme

Color theme for this session (e.g., dark, tokyo-night, dracula). See Theme for the full list of 21 themes. Overrides the persisted camel.tui.theme preference when set.

--record

Replay a .tape file and record the session to an Asciinema .cast file.

--record-size

Size of the recorded terminal for --record, as <cols>x<rows>.

200x50

--record-fps

Frames per second captured by --record.

10

--record-duration

Maximum duration in milliseconds captured by --record.

120000