ASCII Magic
Open tool

ASCII charts for status pages and dashboards

Animated ASCII bar charts, gauges, sparklines and uptime bars for status pages, internal dashboards and terminal tools.

Loading the builder…

/WHY

A wall screen in an office or a homelab is glanced at, not read. Animated ASCII charts and monitors look alive from across the room and match the terminal aesthetic most teams already love.

Pick two, four or six panels from the data pieces, give the screen a title and a clock, and copy one HTML file that fills any TV, plus a Raspberry Pi setup that boots straight into it.

/EXAMPLES

Ready-made examples to copy

Each one is complete. Copy it as it is, or change the piece name to any piece in the library.

Two panels for a small screen

Uptime and network traffic, side by side.

<div style="display:grid;grid-template-columns:1fr 1fr;height:100vh;background:#000">
  <div style="display:grid;place-items:center"><ascii-art piece="uptime-monitor" size="10"></ascii-art></div>
  <div style="display:grid;place-items:center"><ascii-art piece="network-traffic" size="10"></ascii-art></div>
</div>
<script type="module" src="https://www.ascii-magic.com/ascii/ascii.js"></script>

Serve it from a homelab

Any static server works. One line with Python.

cd ~/dashboard && python3 -m http.server 8080
# then open http://<your-pi>:8080/dashboard.html on the TV

How to do it

  1. Pick a chart from Charts and data.
  2. Copy its source into your project.
  3. Replace the demo values with your own data source.

/GUIDE

Decoration, honestly

The data pieces animate convincing but made up numbers. They are for atmosphere, not monitoring. Put your real numbers (from Grafana, your status page or an API) in the header or beside the panels, and let the art make the wall feel alive.

Running for days

Browsers on TVs run for weeks without a reload. The page reloads itself every six hours to stay fresh, hides the cursor, and every panel only draws while visible.

Pieces that work well for this

Open any of them to copy the code or export.

Bar Chart RaceLive Data
Latency Box PlotsLive Data
Wealth and Health BubblesLive Data
Twelve Month HeatmapLive Data
Candlestick ChartLive Data
CPU MonitorLive Data
Donut ChartLive Data
Signup FunnelLive Data

/FAQS

ASCII charts for status pages and dashboards: frequently asked questions

Q. How do I make a terminal dashboard for an office TV?
Pick 2, 4 or 6 panels in the builder, give the screen a title and an optional clock, and download one dashboard.html. Open it full screen in any TV browser, or serve it from a Raspberry Pi that boots straight into it. Each panel is an animated ASCII chart or monitor that fills its box.
Q. What is an ASCII dashboard?
An ASCII dashboard is a screen of charts, gauges and status panels drawn with text characters, in the style of a terminal monitoring tool. It looks alive from across the room and matches the command line look many engineering teams like. The builder makes one from the library's data pieces.
Q. Can the dashboard panels show my real metrics?
Not out of the box. The data pieces are animations with convincing but made-up numbers, built for atmosphere rather than monitoring. To show real values, copy a piece's MIT-licensed source and replace its demo values with your own data, or keep your real monitoring panel on the same screen with the ASCII panels around it.
Q. Which panels can I put on the ASCII dashboard?
Any piece in the library fits a panel, and the builder suggests the data pieces first. Those include Status Page, CPU Monitor, Network Traffic, World Map Pings, Live Line Chart, Speed Gauge, Sparkline Panel, Contribution Heatmap, Leaderboard, Stock Ticker, CI Pipeline, Git Log Graph, Install Log and Calendar Month.
Q. How many panels can the dashboard show?
Two, four or six. Two panels sit side by side for a small screen, while four and six use a grid three columns wide. The page measures each panel after loading and resizes the piece to fit its box, so the layout adapts to any screen size without manual tweaking.
Q. How do I run the dashboard on a Raspberry Pi in kiosk mode?
Copy dashboard.html to the Pi, then run the builder's Raspberry Pi kiosk script. It adds an autostart entry that opens Chromium full screen in kiosk mode on boot, turns off screen blanking and reboots. It needs Raspberry Pi OS with the desktop installed.
Q. How do I serve the dashboard from a homelab server?
Any static file server works. In the folder with dashboard.html, run python3 -m http.server 8080, then open the page at your server's address on port 8080 from the TV's browser. Nothing else is needed on the server, because the panels run in the browser.
Q. Which TV browsers can show the ASCII dashboard?
Any recent Chromium-based browser works well, whether on a Raspberry Pi, a mini PC in kiosk mode or a TV box with a modern browser. The page uses standard HTML, a canvas and JavaScript modules, so very old built-in TV browsers may not run it.
Q. Can the dashboard run for days without attention?
Yes. The page reloads itself every six hours to stay fresh, hides the mouse cursor, and every panel draws only while it is visible. Turn off screen blanking on the device, as the Raspberry Pi script does, so the TV does not go dark.
Q. Does the ASCII dashboard work offline?
Not as downloaded, because it loads the player and pieces from ascii-magic.com. For a screen on a closed network, host the MIT-licensed runtime and the pieces you use on your own server, keep the same folder layout, and point the script tag at your copy.
Q. How do I add a title and clock to the status screen?
Type the title in the Screen title field and switch on Show a clock. The title sits in a slim header bar at the top of the screen, and the clock updates every second in the TV browser's local time. Turn the clock off for a cleaner wall.
Q. Can I use ASCII charts on a public status page?
Yes, as decoration next to your real status text. Embed a piece such as Status Page or Live Line Chart with the script tag, and keep the actual service status in plain HTML. Visitors and screen readers then get accurate information, and the art adds character without implying data it does not show.

Other ways to use it

Each one has its own builder.

AI agent

ASCII art with AI coding agents

Tell Claude, Cursor or any AI coding agent to add an animated ASCII piece to your project. Copy-paste instructions included.

Email

ASCII art GIFs for newsletters and email

Export animated ASCII art as a GIF for newsletters and email, where scripts and video do not play.

README

Animated ASCII art for a GitHub README

Put an animated ASCII banner, scene or loader at the top of your GitHub README. Copy a GIF or SVG, no build step, works in GitHub's dark and light themes.

Website

An animated ASCII hero for GitHub Pages

Add a live, animated ASCII art hero to a GitHub Pages or personal website with one script tag. No framework, no build step, under 10 KB per piece.

Terminal

A terminal welcome screen with animated ASCII art

Show an animated ASCII piece every time you open a terminal, or set a still one as your server's message of the day. Works with zsh, bash and fish.

CLI

Splash screens and loaders for command line tools

Give your CLI a startup splash or an animated loader in ASCII. Copy the piece source into your Node project, or print frames from any language.