Getting Started
Quick Start
Start triaging local failures in a few minutes. Pick the ingestion path that matches how you run your stack today.
Five ingestion paths cover almost every local setup. Use the one that matches how you start your stack today, then open the UI.
| Path | Command | Best when… |
|---|---|---|
| Supervised stack | sentinel dev | You have (or want) a .sentinel.yml and want one command to bring up several services. |
| Docker | sentinel docker | Your stack is already Docker or Compose, started by you or another tool. |
| Wrapped command | sentinel run -- <command> | You start one process yourself and want Sentinel to own its stdout/stderr. |
| Pipe | <anything> | sentinel stdin | A log command already exists and you just want to feed it in. |
| File tail | sentinel watch <glob> | Your app writes to log files and you want Sentinel to tail them. |
Fastest path if you use Docker
sentinel docker
That is the simplest starting point for multi-service local development. Sentinel will try to detect a Compose stack first. If it does not find one with running containers, it falls back to all running containers in the active Docker context.
If you want to confirm the selection logic before ingest starts:
sentinel docker list
sentinel docker explain
Supervised dev stack
sentinel dev
Run from the repo root. If .sentinel.yml is missing and you are in an interactive terminal, the init wizard walks through detected services and writes the config for you. From then on, one command brings up the whole stack and tails it in a built-in TUI with per-service start, stop, and restart controls.
See the full dev guide for .sentinel.yml, groups, attach-only mode, and TUI keybindings.
Wrap a local command
sentinel run --offline -- npm run dev
Use run when you want Sentinel to capture both stdout and stderr from a child process.
Pipe logs through stdin
docker logs -f api | sentinel stdin --offline
Use stdin when you already have a log command you want to keep.
Watch a log file
sentinel watch ./logs/*.log --offline
Use watch when your app already writes to files and you want Sentinel to tail them continuously.
Open the local UI
sentinel ui
Then open http://127.0.0.1:4040.
Typical loop
sentinel dev
sentinel ui
Or:
sentinel docker
sentinel ui
Or:
sentinel run --offline -- <your command>
sentinel ui
Mental model
- one recurring bug becomes a grouped issue
- one specific appearance of that bug becomes an occurrence
- Sentinel stores both locally so you can inspect repeat failures instead of losing them in scrollback