Interactive Shell

Start an interactive LynxFlow REPL with tab completion, query history, and slash commands.

lynxdb shell [flags]

Aliases: sh, repl, console.

Flags

Flag	Short	Default	Description
--file	-f		File mode (load file into ephemeral engine)
--since	-s	15m	Default time range for queries

Examples

# Connect to server
lynxdb shell

# Query a local file
lynxdb shell --file access.log

# Default time range
lynxdb shell --since 1h

Console Output

  LynxDB v0.1.0 — Interactive Shell
  Connected to http://localhost:3100
  Type /help for commands.

lynxdb> where level == "error" | stats count() by source
  source          count
  nginx           340
  api-gateway     120

  2 rows — 45ms

lynxdb>

Slash Commands

Meta-operations available inside the shell:

Command	Description
/help (/h)	Show help
/quit (/exit, /q)	Exit the shell
/clear (/cls)	Clear the screen
/history	Show query history
/fields	List known fields (server mode)
/sources	List event sources (server mode)
/explain <query>	Show query execution plan (server mode)
/set since <val>	Change default time range
/since <duration>	Shorthand for /set since <val>
/format <fmt>	Set output format: table, json, csv, raw
/timing [on|off]	Toggle elapsed time display
/server	Show server version, health, uptime (server mode)
/save <name> [query]	Save last query or a specified query (server mode)
/run <name>	Run a saved query by name (server mode)
/queries	List saved queries (server mode)
/tail <query>	Start live tail with a LynxFlow filter (server mode)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Run the query
Shift+Enter	Insert a newline (multi-line input)
Tab	Accept inline suggestion / completion
Ctrl+Space	Open the completion popup
Up / Down, Ctrl+P / Ctrl+N	Navigate query history
Ctrl+A / Ctrl+E	Jump to line start / end
Ctrl+L	Clear the results area
Ctrl+C	Cancel a running query / clear input (twice on empty input: exit)
Ctrl+D	Exit (on empty input)
Esc	Close popup / leave scroll mode (twice on idle prompt: exit)
PgUp / PgDn (or Option+↑ / Option+↓)	Scroll results (enters scroll mode)
F2	Toggle the sidebar

Scrolling Results

Press PgUp or PgDn to move focus from the prompt into the results area (scroll mode). On Mac keyboards without physical paging keys use Option+↑ / Option+↓ (or Fn+↑ / Fn+↓). Inside scroll mode the full set of Vim-style keys works:

Key	Action
j / k, arrow keys	Scroll line by line
u / d (also Ctrl+U)	Half page up / down
b / f, PgUp / PgDn, Option+↑ / Option+↓, Space	Page up / down
g / G (also Home / End)	Jump to top / bottom
y / Y	Copy last result table (plain / Markdown)
Esc	Back to the prompt

While in scroll mode the shell also captures the mouse, so the wheel scrolls the results and sidebar fields are clickable. At the prompt the mouse is left to the terminal for native text selection - note that in most terminals the wheel then sends arrow keys, which navigate query history instead.

The status bar at the bottom always shows the shortcuts available in the current mode.

Exiting

All of these leave the shell:

• /quit (or /exit, /q)
• Typing quit, exit, logout, q, :q, or \q (ClickHouse-style exit words)
• Ctrl+D on an empty prompt
• Pressing Ctrl+C or Esc twice on an empty prompt - the first press shows a hint, the second within 3 seconds exits

On exit the shell prints a short session summary (queries run, last result, elapsed time).

Tab Completion

The shell tab-completes:

• LynxFlow stage names (stats, where, extend, sort, etc.)
• Aggregation function names (count, avg, sum, p99, etc.)
• Field names from the server's field catalog

Query History

• Navigate previous queries with the up/down arrow keys
• History is persisted to ~/.local/share/lynxdb/history
• History survives between shell sessions

Multi-Line Input

Press Shift+Enter, or end a line with |, to continue on the next line:

lynxdb> where level == "error" |
   ...> stats count() by source |
   ...> sort -count |
   ...> head 10

File Mode

When started with --file, the shell loads the file into an ephemeral in-memory engine. All queries run locally without a server:

lynxdb shell --file /var/log/nginx/access.log

  LynxDB v0.1.0 — Interactive Shell
  Loaded: /var/log/nginx/access.log (50,000 events)
  Type /help for commands.

lynxdb> | stats count() by status
  status    count
  200       45000
  404       3000
  500       2000

See Also

• query for one-shot queries
• Shortcuts for quick access commands
• LynxFlow v2 Reference for the query language reference