dirplot

dirplot creates static nested treemap images for directory trees. It can display them in the system image viewer (default, works everywhere) or inline inside the terminal using the iTerm2 inline image protocol or the Kitty graphics protocol — detected automatically at runtime.

Features

• Directories are shown as labelled, nested containers, mirroring the actual hierarchy.
• Squarified treemap layout — rectangles are as square as possible for easy reading.
• File area proportional to file size; colour determined by file extension.
• ~500 known extensions mapped to colours from the GitHub Linguist table; unknown extensions get an MD5-stable colour from any Matplotlib colormap.
• Label colour (black/white) chosen automatically based on background luminance.
• Output resolution matches the current terminal window pixel size (via TIOCGWINSZ), or a custom WIDTHxHEIGHT.
• Van Wijk cushion shading gives tiles a raised 3-D appearance (optional).
• SVG output (--format svg or --output file.svg) produces a fully self-contained interactive file: CSS hover highlight, a JavaScript floating tooltip panel, and cushion shading via a gradient — no external dependencies.
• Display via system image viewer or inline in the terminal (iTerm2 and Kitty protocols, auto-detected).
• Save output to a PNG or SVG file with --output.
• Exclude paths with --exclude (repeatable), or focus on specific subtrees with --subtree / -s (allowlist complement, supports nested paths like src/dirplot/fonts).
• Pass multiple local paths (dirplot map src tests) to scan each independently and display them under their common parent, ignoring all other siblings.
• Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows; WSL2 fully supported.
• Scan remote hosts over SSH (pip install "dirplot[ssh]"), AWS S3 buckets (pip install "dirplot[s3]"), any public/private GitHub repository (including specific branch, tag, commit SHA, or subdirectory), running Docker containers, or Kubernetes pods — all without extra dependencies beyond the respective CLI/SDK. See EXAMPLES.md.
• Optional file-count legend (--legend) — a corner overlay listing the top extensions by number of files, with coloured swatches and counts, automatically sized to fit the image.
• Breadcrumbs mode (on by default) — single-child directory chains are collapsed into one tile with a foo / bar / baz header label. Middle segments are replaced with … when the tile is too narrow. Disable with -B / --no-breadcrumbs.
• Tree depth shown in the root tile header alongside the file count and total size (e.g. myproject — 124 files, 18 dirs, 4.0 MB (…), depth: 6).
• Wide archive support — reads zip, tar (gz/bz2/xz/zst), 7z, rar, and via libarchive: iso, cpio, rpm, cab, lha/lzh, xar/pkg, a/ar, and all ZIP-based formats (jar, whl, apk, nupkg, vsix, ipa, …) as virtual directory trees without unpacking. Encrypted archives are handled gracefully: metadata-only reads work without a password for most formats; a password can be supplied with --password or entered interactively when needed.

How It Works

1. Scans the directory tree, collecting each file's path, extension, and size in bytes.
2. Computes a squarified dirplot layout recursively — directories allocate space for their children.
3. Renders to a PNG via Pillow (PIL) at the exact pixel dimensions of the current terminal window (detected via TIOCGWINSZ), or at a custom size when --size is given.
4. Displays via the system image viewer (open / xdg-open) or inline via an auto-detected terminal graphics protocol (iTerm2 or Kitty).

Extension colours come from the GitHub Linguist language colour table (~500 known extensions). Unknown extensions fall back to an MD5-stable colour derived from the chosen --colormap. File label text is automatically black or white depending on the background luminance.

Installation

Note: The recommended install methods below use uv. See the uv installation guide if you don't have it yet. Alternatively, use pip install dirplot to install without uv.

# As a standalone tool (recommended)
uv tool install dirplot

# Into the current environment
pip install dirplot

From GitHub

# As a standalone tool
uv tool install git+https://github.com/deeplook/dirplot

# Into the current environment
pip install git+https://github.com/deeplook/dirplot

Platform Support

This tool has been developed and tested on macOS and is CI-tested on Linux and Windows (Python 3.10+). The default --show mode works on all platforms. The --inline mode requires a terminal emulator that supports the iTerm2 or Kitty graphics protocol; on Windows, only WezTerm currently qualifies. WSL2 is treated as Linux and has full support. Feedback and bug reports are welcome — please open an issue on GitHub.

Usage

# Use it before installing it
uvx dirplot --help

# Show dirplot for the current directory (opens image in system viewer)
dirplot map .

# Show current terminal size in characters and pixels
dirplot termsize

# Save to a file without displaying
dirplot map . --output dirplot.png --no-show

# Display inline (protocol auto-detected: iTerm2, Kitty, Ghostty)
dirplot map . --inline

# Exclude directories
dirplot map . --exclude .venv --exclude .git

# Map two specific subtrees under their common parent
dirplot map src tests

# Focus on named subtrees of a root (allowlist; supports nested paths)
dirplot map . --subtree src --subtree tests
dirplot map . --subtree src/dirplot/fonts

# Use a different colormap and larger directory labels
dirplot map . --colormap Set2 --font-size 18

# Render at a fixed resolution instead of terminal size
dirplot map . --size 1920x1080 --output dirplot.png --no-show

# Don't apply cushion shading — makes tiles look flat
dirplot map . --no-cushion

# Show a file-count legend (top 20 extensions by default)
dirplot map . --legend

# Show a file-count legend limited to 10 entries
dirplot map . --legend 10

# Disable breadcrumbs (show full nested hierarchy instead of collapsed chains)
dirplot map . -B

# Save as an interactive SVG (hover highlight + floating tooltip)
dirplot map . --output treemap.svg --no-show

# Force SVG format explicitly
dirplot map . --format svg --output treemap.svg --no-show

Options

Flag	Short	Default	Description
--output	-o	—	Save to this path (PNG or SVG)
--format	-f	auto	Output format: png or svg. Auto-detected from --output extension
--show/--no-show		--show	Display the image after rendering
--inline		off	Display in terminal (protocol auto-detected; PNG only)
--legend [N]		off	Show file-count legend; N sets max entries (default: 20)
--font-size		12	Directory label font size in pixels
--colormap	-c	tab20	Matplotlib colormap for unknown extensions
--exclude	-e	—	Path to exclude (repeatable)
--subtree	-s	—	Show only this subtree of the root (repeatable); supports nested paths like src/dirplot/fonts
--size		terminal size	Output dimensions as WIDTHxHEIGHT (e.g. 1920x1080)
--header/--no-header		--header	Print info lines before rendering
--cushion/--no-cushion		--cushion	Apply van Wijk cushion shading for a raised 3-D look
--log/--no-log		--no-log	Use log of file sizes for layout, making small files more visible
--breadcrumbs/--no-breadcrumbs	-b/-B	--breadcrumbs	Collapse single-child directory chains into foo / bar / baz labels
--password		—	Password for encrypted archives; prompted interactively if not supplied and needed
--github-token		$GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub personal access token for private repos or higher rate limits

Inline Display

The --inline flag renders the image directly in the terminal. The protocol is auto-detected at runtime: terminals that support the Kitty graphics protocol use APC chunks (ESC_G…); all others fall back to the iTerm2 inline image protocol (ESC]1337;File=…).

Terminal	Platform	Protocol
iTerm2	macOS	iTerm2
WezTerm	macOS, Linux, Windows	Kitty & iTerm2
Warp	macOS, Linux	iTerm2
Hyper	macOS, Linux, Windows	iTerm2
Kitty	macOS, Linux	Kitty
Ghostty	macOS, Linux	Kitty

The default mode (--show, no --inline) opens the PNG in the system viewer (open on macOS, xdg-open on Linux, system default on Windows) and works in any terminal.

Windows note: Common Windows shells (PowerShell, cmd, Git Bash) and terminal emulators (Windows Terminal, ConEmu) do not support any inline image protocol. --inline will silently produce no output in these environments. WezTerm is currently the only mainstream Windows terminal emulator that supports inline image rendering (via the Kitty graphics protocol). WSL2 is treated as Linux and has full support.

Tip: In terminals that support inline images (iTerm2, WezTerm, Kitty, etc.), the rendered image can often be dragged directly out of the terminal window and dropped into another application or saved to the desktop — no --output needed. This drag-and-drop behaviour is not guaranteed across all terminals.

Note: --inline does not work in AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot Chat. These tools intercept terminal output as plain text and do not implement any graphics protocol, so the escape sequences are either stripped or displayed as garbage. Use the default --show mode (system viewer) or --output to save the PNG to a file instead. Or use Pi where it is easily added as an extension.

Archives

dirplot can read local archive files without unpacking them — zip, tar (gz/bz2/xz/zst), 7z, rar, and many more via libarchive (iso, cpio, rpm, cab, lha, xar, and all ZIP-based formats like jar, whl, apk, nupkg, vsix, ipa). See ARCHIVES.md for the full list, dependencies, and platform notes.

dirplot map project.zip
dirplot map release.tar.gz --depth 2
dirplot map app.jar

Remote Access

dirplot can scan SSH hosts, AWS S3 buckets, GitHub repositories, running Docker containers, and Kubernetes pods. See EXAMPLES.md for full details.

pip install "dirplot[ssh]"   # SSH via paramiko
pip install "dirplot[s3]"    # AWS S3 via boto3
                             # GitHub: no extra dependency needed
                             # Docker: only the docker CLI required
                             # Kubernetes: only kubectl required

dirplot map ssh://alice@prod.example.com/var/www
dirplot map s3://noaa-ghcn-pds --no-sign
dirplot map github://pallets/flask
dirplot map github://torvalds/linux@v6.12/Documentation
dirplot map docker://my-container:/app
dirplot map pod://my-pod:/app
dirplot map pod://my-pod@staging:/app

GitHub authentication

Public repositories work without a token but are subject to GitHub's unauthenticated rate limit of 60 requests/hour. A personal access token raises this to 5,000 requests/hour and is required for private repositories.

Pass a token via the --github-token flag or the GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable:

# via flag
dirplot map github://my-org/private-repo --github-token ghp_…

# via environment variable (also picked up automatically by the CLI)
export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_…
dirplot map github://my-org/private-repo

To create a token: GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Generate new token (see GitHub's guide). For read-only treemap access the public_repo scope (or no scope for public repos) is sufficient; add repo for private repositories.

Python API

Note: The programmatic Python API is still evolving and may change between releases without notice. Pin a specific version if you depend on it. The CLI interface is stable.

The public API is small — build_tree, create_treemap, create_treemap_svg, and the display helpers:

from pathlib import Path
from dirplot import build_tree, create_treemap, create_treemap_svg

root = build_tree(Path("/path/to/project"))

# PNG — returns a BytesIO containing PNG bytes
buf = create_treemap(root, width_px=1920, height_px=1080, colormap="tab20", cushion=True)
Path("treemap.png").write_bytes(buf.read())

# SVG — returns a BytesIO containing UTF-8 SVG bytes
# Includes CSS hover highlight, a JS floating tooltip, and cushion gradient shading.
buf = create_treemap_svg(root, width_px=1920, height_px=1080, cushion=True)
Path("treemap.svg").write_bytes(buf.read())

To open a PNG in the system image viewer or display it inline in the terminal:

from dirplot.display import display_window, display_inline

buf.seek(0)
display_window(buf)   # system viewer (works everywhere)

buf.seek(0)
display_inline(buf)   # inline in terminal (iTerm2 / Kitty / WezTerm)

In a Jupyter notebook, PNG output renders automatically via PIL:

from PIL import Image
buf = create_treemap(root, width_px=1280, height_px=720)
Image.open(buf)  # Jupyter renders PIL images automatically via _repr_png_()

Development

git clone https://github.com/deeplook/dirplot
cd dirplot
make test

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full details.

License

MIT