pgtail Brandon Williams

Use this command to install pgtail with WinGet:

winget install --id=willibrandon.pgtail -e

pgtail is an interactive CLI tool for tailing PostgreSQL log files. It auto-detects PostgreSQL instances and provides real-time log streaming with level filtering, vim-style navigation, and color output.

pgtail

An interactive PostgreSQL log tailer. It finds the PostgreSQL instances on your machine, follows their logs in a full screen view, and colors and filters what matters while the log keeps running.

Documentation: https://pgtail.dev/

Install

dotnet tool install -g pgtail

Method	Command
Homebrew (macOS, Linux)	`brew tap willibrandon/tap && brew install pgtail`
winget (Windows)	`winget install willibrandon.pgtail`
Scoop (Windows)	`scoop bucket add willibrandon https://github.com/willibrandon/scoop-bucket && scoop install pgtail`
Archive or MSI	GitHub Releases

pgtail is a native executable for Windows, Linux, and macOS on x64 and Arm64, with nothing else to install. The installation guide covers each method, upgrading, and shell completion.

Use

pgtail                           # The interactive prompt
pgtail list                      # The PostgreSQL instances it found
pgtail tail 0                    # Follow instance 0 in tail mode
pgtail tail 0 --since 1h         # Starting an hour back
pgtail tail --file ./server.log  # Any log file, or a glob of them
pgtail tail 0 --stream           # Print entries instead, for piping

In tail mode the log scrolls with vim keys or the mouse, and commands typed at the tail> input change what it shows:

tail&gt; level error+        # ERROR and more severe
tail&gt; filter /deadlock/   # A regular expression
tail&gt; since 5m            # The last five minutes
tail&gt; errors              # Error statistics
tail&gt; clear               # Back to where tail mode started

The quick start walks through a first session.

What it does

Finds instances from running processes, pgrx, PGDATA, and the usual Homebrew, Debian and Ubuntu, PGDG, Postgres.app, and Windows locations, and follows PostgreSQL to its next log file after a rotation or restart
Reads text, csvlog, and jsonlog, from an instance, from files and globs, or from a pipe
Filters by level, regular expression, time range, and csvlog or jsonlog fields, changed while the log runs
Highlights SQL, durations, SQLSTATE codes, LSNs, locks, and more with thirty semantic highlighters, plus your own patterns, in six built-in color themes or one you write
Reports error, connection, and query duration statistics, and flags slow queries by threshold
Sends desktop notifications for levels, patterns, error rates, and slow queries, with quiet hours
Exports the filtered entries as text, JSON Lines, or CSV, or pipes them to any command

Each of these has a page in the guide; the command reference lists every command and the configuration reference every setting.

Building

pgtail needs the .NET 10 SDK.

git clone https://github.com/willibrandon/pgtail.git
cd pgtail
dotnet build
dotnet test
dotnet run --project src/Pgtail

scripts/Publish-NativeAot.cs publishes the native executable for a runtime as the release does; see scripts/README.md. The documentation site in docs/ is built with pnpm: pnpm install, then pnpm build or pnpm dev. CONTRIBUTING.md has the conventions.

License

MIT