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frigate-top (1.2.0)

Published 2026-07-18 17:48:50 +00:00 by jd in jd/frigate-top

Installation

pip install --index-url  frigate-top

About this package

Real-time terminal dashboard for Frigate NVR/CCTV servers

frigate-top

htop for your Frigate NVR box — a real-time terminal dashboard for Frigate CCTV hosts

CI License: Apache 2.0 Python 3.7+ deps: zero · stdlib platform: Linux

frigate-top is a real-time, interactive terminal dashboard for Frigate NVR/CCTV hosts — htop for your Frigate box. It shows host-level metrics (CPU, memory, disk I/O, network I/O + errors, NVIDIA GPU, CPU iowait, load) and Frigate-specific metrics (skipped frames, detector inference time, detection FPS, camera FPS, online/offline cameras, estimated supported cameras) across a grid of block-bar graphs (one GPU set per detected GPU). Each graph fills the full width over the configured timeframe, carries a -span … now time axis, colours its fill and current value green/amber/red by warn/crit thresholds, and marks the newest sample with a bright endpoint.

It is stdlib-only Python in a single file — no pip, no required dependencies, no build step.

frigate-top dashboard — host and Frigate metrics across a grid of block-bar graphs

The dashboard — SYSTEM / NETWORK / FRIGATE bands, live block-bar graphs, and a boxed header table.

What it does

  • Draws a live, auto-refreshing dashboard grouped into SYSTEM / NETWORK / FRIGATE bands with colour-coded graph borders (blue = system, yellow = network, orange = Frigate).
  • Shows a header table grouped into identity (hostname, uptime, OS, kernel), hardware (CPU, memory, GPU model + driver), Frigate (version, camera counts, supported-camera estimate, detector), and streams/storage (resolution, retention, interface, disk) — plus a status line of active warnings.
  • Summarises tracked-object activity for the selected timeframe in the header (Detections 1m 4 person 2 vehicle 1 animal 2 face 1 plate), pulled from /api/events — a fixed category breakdown (person / vehicle / animal / recognised face / recognised plate, plus other) so the structure is visible even at zero. The API is polled at most every few seconds and cached.
  • Collapsible sections — press s / w / f / g / t to fold the System / Network / Frigate / GPU / Thermal groups; everything except Frigate starts collapsed so it fits smaller terminals. Handles live terminal resizing without dropping graphs.
  • Auto-fit (--auto-fit) expands as many sections as fit the terminal, in a fixed priority order (Frigate → System → GPU → Thermal → Network), recomputed on resize; it yields to manual control the moment you toggle a section.
  • Detects multiple GPUs and draws a labelled GPU0 / GPU1 … util/mem/temp set for each, in their own GPU band (shown only when a GPU is present).
  • Auto-detects thermal sensors (AMD k10temp, Intel coretemp/PCH, ARM, and super-I/O boards) and draws a THERMAL band with CPU temperature, system/board temperature, and one graph per active fan — read from /sys/class/hwmon with no dependency, falling back to lm-sensors when needed. The first spinning fan is labelled CPU, the rest SYS1 / SYS2 …; rename them with --fan-labels. Chassis-intrusion reporting is opt-in via --chassis-intrusion (many boards latch a spurious alarm).
  • Graphs Frigate skipped frames and NET errors in red on any nonzero value — these should always be zero, so they catch the eye immediately.
  • Renders block-bar graphs by default (--braille for dense Braille area charts, --ascii for plain ASCII). Fills always span the full width and scroll left over the true timeframe; the x-axis reports how much history is currently shown.
  • Encodes health in colour: bars and the title value turn amber past the warn threshold and red past crit, with a dashed guide line at each threshold and a ▲/▼/→ trend arrow versus the window start.
  • Marks absent sensors (no GPU, no Frigate) with a dimmed no sensor panel instead of a misleading flat line.
  • Estimates how many cameras the detector(s) can keep up with — a throughput bound (detector inferences/sec × headroom ÷ configured detect fps), which is the real limit on a Frigate box. It is motion-independent (uses the configured detect fps, not the noisy live rate); a single Coral at 5 fps works out to ~18 cameras. Tune the safety margin with --detector-headroom (default 0.75).
  • Auto-detects the Frigate API at common ports (5000, 8971, 80, 443) and protocols (HTTP/HTTPS) (override with --frigate-url); tracks disk and the busiest network interface (pin with --disk / --net-iface).
  • Lets you switch history timeframe on the fly (1, 5, p for 15m, c for custom) and export samples to CSV (--csv).
  • Graphs the things an NVR actually cares about: Disk usage % and Frigate Recordings % (a filling disk is the classic failure), NVMe drive temperatures, GPU encoder/decoder utilization (Frigate's ffmpeg hwaccel), Frigate's own CPU/memory footprint, and host Swap %.
  • Per-box settings file — an INI config (--settings, $FRIGATE_TOP_CONFIG, ~/.config/frigate-top/config.ini, /etc/frigate-top/config.ini) with precedence CLI › env › file › default; --write-config prints a commented starter. Every threshold, fan label, and toggle lives here.
  • Health-check mode (--check) samples once and exits non-zero on any critical condition — drop it in cron / systemd / Uptime-Kuma. --fahrenheit shows °F.
  • Aggregates all network interfaces by default (pin one with --net-iface); the NETWORK header shows which.

Install

frigate-top is stdlib-only, so the simplest install is a single self-contained file — a zipapp bundle you drop on PATH: no pip, no dependencies, and it sidesteps the externally-managed-environment (PEP 668) error on modern Debian/Ubuntu entirely.

Single file — recommended (no pip, no dependencies):

# fetch the zipapp bundle from the latest release and drop it on PATH
sudo curl -fsSL https://git.jdneer.com/jd/frigate-top/releases/download/v1.2.0/frigate-top.pyz \
  -o /usr/local/bin/frigate-top
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/frigate-top
frigate-top

It's one file with a #!/usr/bin/env python3 shebang — Python 3.7+ and the standard library only, no install step. (Optional: apt install python3-yaml for richer Frigate config parsing — a regex fallback is used without it.) From a clone you can build the same file with python3 scripts/build_pyz.py (→ dist/frigate-top.pyz).

As a managed command with pipx (isolated venv, PEP 668-friendly):

sudo apt install pipx          # if not already present
PIP_INDEX_URL=https://git.jdneer.com/api/packages/jd/pypi/simple/ pipx install frigate-top

From the Forgejo package registry with pip:

pip install --index-url https://git.jdneer.com/api/packages/jd/pypi/simple/ frigate-top
# optional extra for richer YAML config parsing:
pip install --index-url https://git.jdneer.com/api/packages/jd/pypi/simple/ 'frigate-top[yaml]'

On a PEP 668 system (recent Debian/Ubuntu), pip won't touch the system Python — use the single file or pipx above, install into a python3 -m venv first, or append --break-system-packages if you accept the consequences.

From source:

git clone https://git.jdneer.com/jd/frigate-top.git
cd frigate-top
pip install .          # or: pip install '.[yaml]'

Usage

Run frigate-top (installed or the .pyz on PATH) or python3 -m frigate_top (from a source checkout).

Controls (keyboard):

  • m — toggle memory graph between percentage and bytes (used / cached / free)
  • n — toggle network graphs between Mbps and MB/s
  • s / w / f / g / t — collapse or expand the System / Network / Frigate / GPU / Thermal sections (only Frigate starts expanded)
  • 1 / 5 / p — set history to 1 / 5 / 15 minutes
  • c — set a custom history timeframe (in minutes)
  • q — quit

Examples:

# Default 1-minute history, 1-second refresh
frigate-top

# 10-minute history
frigate-top --timeframe 10

# Point to a Frigate API and config
frigate-top --frigate-url http://localhost:5000 --config /config/config.yml

# Pin a specific network interface / disk device
frigate-top --net-iface eth0 --disk nvme0n1

# Write samples to CSV
frigate-top --csv /tmp/frigate-top.csv

# Dense Braille area charts, or plain ASCII with no colour
frigate-top --braille
frigate-top --ascii --no-color

# One-off snapshot for cron or health checks (works headless)
frigate-top --snapshot

# Thermal: name the fans to match the case and enable intrusion reporting
frigate-top --fan-labels "CPU,Rear,Top" --chassis-intrusion

# Generate a starter settings file, then edit it
mkdir -p ~/.config/frigate-top
frigate-top --write-config > ~/.config/frigate-top/config.ini

# Health check for cron / systemd / Uptime-Kuma (exit code != 0 on any CRIT)
frigate-top --check

# Fahrenheit, and pin one interface instead of the aggregate
frigate-top --fahrenheit --net-iface eth0

Per-host launcher (shell alias)

Thermal auto-detection is generic, but fan positions and sensor quirks are board-specific. Bake the host's specifics into a shell alias so ft always launches a tuned view. Add this to ~/.bashrc (Bash) or ~/.zshrc (Zsh) — the syntax is identical:

# ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc — "frigate top, this box"
alias ft='frigate-top \
  --frigate-url http://localhost:5000 \
  --fan-labels "CPU,Rear Exhaust,Top,GPU" \
  --chassis-intrusion \
  --net-iface enp42s0 --disk sda \
  --cpu-temp-warn 90 --sys-temp-warn 70 \
  --timeframe 5'

Then just run ft. The --fan-labels list maps in detection order (first spinning fan first), so the graph titles become CPU fan RPM, Rear Exhaust fan RPM, and so on. Everything is also settable via environment variables (see below), which is often cleaner for a systemd unit or a container:

export FAN_LABELS="CPU,Rear Exhaust,Top,GPU"
export CHASSIS_INTRUSION=1
export CPU_TEMP_WARN=90 SYS_TEMP_WARN=70
frigate-top

Requirements

  • Python 3.7+ (Linux — reads /proc and /sys)
  • No required dependencies. frigate-top runs on the standard library alone.
  • Optional, detected at runtime:
    • PyYAML (frigate-top[yaml]) — richer Frigate config parsing; a minimal regex fallback is used without it
    • nvidia-smi — NVIDIA GPU stats
    • docker or podman — Frigate container status
    • A reachable Frigate API — camera/detector stats and the detections summary
    • lm-sensors (sensors) — only a fallback for the Thermal band; /sys/class/hwmon is read first and covers most boxes without it

Configuration

Every option can be set three ways, in order of precedence: command-line flag › environment variable › settings file › built-in default.

Settings file

For per-box configuration, use an INI settings file instead of a long alias. Generate a commented starter with frigate-top --write-config, then save it to one of (first found wins): the path given to --settings, $FRIGATE_TOP_CONFIG, ~/.config/frigate-top/config.ini, or /etc/frigate-top/config.ini.

[frigate-top]
frigate_url = http://localhost:5000
fan_labels = CPU, Rear Exhaust, Top
fan_max_rpm = 4000, 2000, 2000
chassis_intrusion = true
auto_fit = true
fahrenheit = false
cpu_temp_crit = 90
disk_full_crit = 90

Keys are the lowercased environment-variable names from the table below. A CLI flag or env var still overrides the file, so the same file works across hosts with per-host tweaks layered on top.

Environment variables

Variable Default Description
TIMEFRAME 1 Graph history in minutes
REFRESH 1.0 Refresh interval in seconds
MAX_TIMEFRAME 60 Maximum allowed history in minutes
FRIGATE_CONFIG "" Path to Frigate config.yml
FRIGATE_URL "" Frigate API URL, e.g. http://localhost:5000
INSECURE 0 Set to 1 to skip TLS verification for a remote HTTPS Frigate (loopback always allowed)
NET_IFACE "" Network interface to monitor (auto-detected if empty)
DISK_DEVICE "" Disk device to monitor, e.g. sda / nvme0n1 (auto-detected if empty)
CSV_FILE "" Append samples to CSV
ASCII 0 Set to 1 for ASCII graph characters
BRAILLE 0 Set to 1 for dense Braille area charts instead of block bars
NO_COLOR 0 Set to 1 to disable colors
AUTO_FIT 0 Set to 1 to expand as many sections as fit the terminal (priority: frigate, system, gpu, thermal, network)
FRIGATE_TOP_CONFIG "" Path to an INI settings file (see above)
FAHRENHEIT 0 Set to 1 to display temperatures in °F
NO_THERMAL 0 Set to 1 to disable thermal detection and the THERMAL section
FAN_MAX_RPM "" Fixed fan-graph max RPM: one value for all, or comma-separated per fan (blank = auto-scale)
LOAD_WARN 0 Load-average warning threshold (0 = off)
CPU_TEMP_CRIT 95 CPU temperature critical °C
SYS_TEMP_CRIT 95 System/board temperature critical °C
NVME_TEMP_WARN 70 NVMe temperature warning °C
NVME_TEMP_CRIT 85 NVMe temperature critical °C
DISK_FULL_WARN 80 Storage full warning threshold
CPU_WARN 80 CPU warning threshold
CPU_CRIT 95 CPU critical threshold
MEM_WARN 80 Memory warning threshold
MEM_CRIT 95 Memory critical threshold
GPU_WARN 80 GPU utilization warning threshold
GPU_CRIT 95 GPU utilization critical threshold
GPU_TEMP_WARN 80 GPU temperature warning °C
CPU_TEMP_WARN 85 CPU temperature warning °C (Thermal band)
SYS_TEMP_WARN 85 System/board temperature warning °C (Thermal band)
CHASSIS_INTRUSION 0 Set to 1 to enable chassis-intrusion detection (off by default)
FAN_LABELS "" Comma-separated fan names applied in detection order, e.g. CPU,Rear,Top
DISK_IOWAIT_WARN 20 I/O wait warning threshold
DISK_FULL_CRIT 85 Storage full critical threshold
NET_WARN 1000 Network throughput warning Mbps
FRIGATE_SKIPPED_WARN 1.0 Skipped FPS warning threshold
FRIGATE_INFERENCE_WARN 100 Detector inference time warning ms
DETECTOR_HEADROOM 0.75 Fraction of detector throughput used to size the supported-cameras estimate

Files

File Description
frigate_top/ The dashboard — a stdlib-only package (sampler, graphs, tui, cli, …)
scripts/build_pyz.py Bundles the package into the single-file frigate-top.pyz
pyproject.toml Package metadata (version read from __version__)
requirements.in / requirements.txt Optional pinned + hash-verified PyYAML (see below)
VERSION.md / CHANGELOG.md Versioning and release notes
LICENSE / NOTICE / DISCLAIMER.md Apache-2.0 licence and terms

Optional supply-chain hardening

PyYAML is optional. If you want it hash-verified, requirements.txt pins it with SHA-256 hashes:

pip install --require-hashes -r requirements.txt

Regenerate after changing requirements.in:

pip install pip-tools && pip-compile --generate-hashes requirements.in -o requirements.txt

Versioning

frigate-top follows Semantic Versioning. The version lives once in frigate_top/_version.py as __version__ and flows to the header title and the built package — see VERSION.md for the release process and CHANGELOG.md for history.

Notes

  • If the terminal is too small or not a TTY, use --snapshot for a one-off reading.
  • The first sample is used as a baseline and is not shown in the graphs, so deltas are meaningful.
  • Frigate config auto-detection tries /config/config.yml, /config/config.yaml, /etc/frigate/config.yml, /opt/frigate/config/config.yml, and ~/frigate/config/config.yml.
  • MQTT broker monitoring is intentionally not included because the broker is optional and containerized; the Frigate API provides the same health signals.
  • Security posture: the tool is read-only — it shells out only to fixed commands (nvidia-smi, docker/podman ps, df) with no shell or user-interpolated arguments, parses YAML with safe_load, and writes its optional --debug log to a per-user directory ($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) opened with O_NOFOLLOW. TLS certificates are verified for remote HTTPS Frigate instances; verification is relaxed only for loopback hosts (where self-signed certs are the norm) or when --insecure is passed.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See NOTICE for attribution and DISCLAIMER.md for terms regarding use, third-party trademarks, warranty, and liability.

frigate-top is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Frigate NVR project, NVIDIA, Google, or Docker.

Requirements

Requires Python: >=3.7
Details
PyPI
jd/frigate-top
2026-07-18 17:48:50 +00:00
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Versions (7) View all
1.4.2 2026-07-19
1.4.1 2026-07-18
1.4.0 2026-07-18
1.3.0 2026-07-18
1.2.0 2026-07-18
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