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jolt

Quick Start

This guide will get you up and running with jolt in under 5 minutes.

Launch jolt

Section titled “Launch jolt”

After installation, simply run:

Terminal window
jolt

You’ll see the main TUI interface with:

  • Battery gauge showing charge level
  • Power metrics (CPU, GPU, total watts)
  • Process list sorted by energy impact
  • Real-time graphs

Basic Navigation

Section titled “Basic Navigation”
KeyAction
↑ / kMove selection up
↓ / jMove selection down
EnterExpand/collapse process group
? / hShow help
qQuit

Try These Features

Section titled “Try These Features”

1. Check Battery Health

Section titled “1. Check Battery Health”

Look at the battery panel in the top-left. You’ll see:

  • Current charge percentage
  • Charging state (charging, discharging, full)
  • Time remaining estimate
  • Battery health percentage
  • Cycle count

2. Monitor Power Usage

Section titled “2. Monitor Power Usage”

The power panel shows real-time wattage:

  • Total — Combined system power draw
  • CPU — Processor power consumption
  • GPU — Graphics power consumption
  • ANE — Neural Engine power (Apple Silicon only)

Note: On Intel Macs, power metrics are not available. On Linux, requires RAPL permissions.

3. Find Energy Hogs

Section titled “3. Find Energy Hogs”

The process list shows apps by energy impact:

  • 🔴 High — Significantly impacting battery
  • 🟠 Elevated — Above normal usage
  • 🟡 Moderate — Some impact
  • 🟢 Low — Minimal impact

Press Enter on a parent process to see its children.

4. Switch Themes

Section titled “4. Switch Themes”

Press t to cycle through appearance modes:

  • Auto — Follow system dark/light mode
  • Dark — Force dark theme
  • Light — Force light theme

Press T (shift) to open the theme picker for 300+ themes.

5. View Graphs

Section titled “5. View Graphs”

Press g to toggle the graph metric between:

  • Battery percentage over time
  • Power consumption over time

Command-Line Options

Section titled “Command-Line Options”
Terminal window
# Faster refresh rate (500ms instead of 1000ms)
jolt --refresh-ms 500


# Force dark theme
jolt --appearance dark


# Low power mode (slower refresh, less CPU)
jolt --low-power

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”