lazypx4

Fly and monitor PX4 drones from a terminal — no mouse, no GUI, works over SSH.

Why

lazypx4 is built for a faster workflow. Everything is one keypress away in a clean, good-looking terminal interface — no mouse, no clicking through menus. It's light enough to run one per robot, so going from one drone to a whole fleet is just another terminal pane.

It's a small program in the spirit of lazygit and lazydocker, inspired by mrs_uav_status.

What it does

• Dashboard — GPS, battery, position, flight mode, and the health of the onboard computer, all on one screen
• Flight control — arm, take off, land, return home, change modes, fly to a point
• Preflight check — a single GO / NO-GO screen before you fly
• Alerts — flashing warning and a beep on link loss, low battery or failsafes
• Mission map — see where the drone is, load waypoints and geofences
• Parameters, logs, calibration, firmware — the usual setup tasks, without leaving the terminal
• Payload — aim the gimbal, take photos / video, operate a gripper, winch or spare outputs
• Fleet view — watch and command several drones side by side
• Recording & replay — every session is saved and can be played back later
• ROS 2 (optional) — shows LiDAR scans and planned paths on the map

Everything is a single keypress away, with vim-style navigation. Anything that changes the drone's state asks you to type YES first.

Install

You need Rust.

git clone https://github.com/manuelboldrer/lazypx4.git
cd lazypx4
install/install.sh

For ROS 2 support, run source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash and then install/install.sh --ros.

The result is a single small program you can copy to any companion computer.

Run

lazypx4                  # connect to a drone sending MAVLink on port 14560
lazypx4 --port 14540     # PX4 simulator (SITL)
lazypx4 --fleet 14560-14563   # several drones at once
lazypx4 --help           # all options

On a real drone, tell PX4 where to send data by adding this line to etc/extras.txt on its SD card:

mavlink start -u 14560 -o 14560 -t <your-computer-ip> -m onboard -r 4000000

Most-used keys

Key	Action
a / d	Arm / disarm
T / L / R / h	Take off / land / return home / hold
y	Preflight check
n	Map
p	Parameters
l	Flight logs
:	Type a command (e.g. :takeoff 5)
?	Help for the current screen
q	Quit / go back

The full list of keys, commands and settings is in docs/reference.md. Defaults can be changed in lazypx4.toml.

Status

Under active testing — feedback is welcome, please open an issue or send a PR.

Author

Manuel Boldrer - manuel.boldrer@gmail.com Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Smart Mechatronics and Robotics Group. Developed with assistance from Anthropic's Claude AI.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.