Skip to main content
When something misbehaves, SSH into MARS and work through the layers: overall status → hardware → logs → skills → raw ROS2. The innate CLI covers the first four without touching ROS2 directly.
Prefer the browser? The web app’s Debugging page shows the robot’s entire console — every node and process, structured, filterable, and live — with no SSH, and it’s a complete superset of /rosout. Reach for this terminal guide when you need the CLI, tmux, or raw ROS 2 tools.

​
1) Get the lay of the land

innate
Running innate with no arguments prints the status dashboard: OS version, mode, ROS/DDS status, and a quick command reference. Start here — it often answers “is the stack even running?” immediately.

​
2) Check the hardware

innate diag
Runs hardware diagnostics across servos, PCB, lidar, cameras, and speaker. If a component fails here, no amount of software debugging will help — fix the hardware issue first (see Troubleshooting).

​
3) Read the logs

innate view        # shortcut for: innate service view
Attaches to the tmux session where every ROS node runs, one pane per node. Look for red error text, stack traces, or panes stuck in a restart loop.
KeysAction
Ctrl+B then 0–6Switch to a window
Ctrl+B then ← / →Switch between panes
Ctrl+B then ZZoom a pane to full screen (again to unzoom)
Ctrl+B then [Scroll mode (q to exit)
Ctrl+B then DDetach (nodes keep running)

​
4) Test skills in isolation

When an agent misbehaves, bypass it and trigger the skill directly: 
innate skill list                                    # what's loaded right now
innate skill type innate-os/arm_utils                # show a skill's input contract
innate skill run innate-os/arm_utils @command=torque_on
If the skill works when run directly, the problem is in the agent (prompt, skill list, inputs) — not the skill.

​
5) Drop down to ROS2

For anything the CLI doesn’t surface, use the ROS2 CLI directly: 
ros2 node list
ros2 topic list
ros2 topic echo /battery_state
ros2 service list
ros2 doctor
See Topics, Services, and Actions for the full interface reference.

​
6) Restart and rebuild

innate restart     # restart all ROS nodes (shortcut for: innate service restart)
innate build       # stop nodes, rebuild the workspace, restart nodes
innate build is smart: if nodes aren’t running it just builds, and if the build fails it leaves nodes stopped rather than restarting a broken stack.
For every command and flag, see the Innate CLI Reference. For hardware/runtime issue patterns, see Troubleshooting. For visualization workflows (RViz and Foxglove Bridge), see ROS2 Overview.