jsonl-viewer Grows into a Coding-Agent Trace Viewer

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-09-07 · Open on X

Topics: AI Dev Tools & Productivity, AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP, LLMOps, Deployment & Monitoring · Level: intermediate

Summary

The creator's open-source jsonl-viewer started as a tool for viewing and editing .jsonl datasets. It now also displays coding-agent traces from Codex, Claude Code, Pi and Hermes, which helps when debugging what an agent actually did.

Key points

• jsonl-viewer views and edits .jsonl files, the format often used for fine-tuning and training datasets.
• It is turning into a trace viewer for coding agents: Codex, Claude Code, Pi and Hermes.
• Coding agents save session traces as JSONL, so a JSONL viewer can be used to inspect them.
• Follow the repo for updates.

Resources mentioned

• donvito/jsonl-viewer · repo · github.com · free
  Open-source tool for viewing and editing .jsonl files (fine-tuning datasets) and agent traces from Codex, Claude Code, Pi and Hermes.
  Also in: jsonl-viewer: Live Traces for Codex Orchestrator and Subagents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), See live Codex traces with the jsonl-viewer tool (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Melvin Vivas's open-source AI tools, built with Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Analyzing Codex Traces with jsonl-viewer (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 12 more
• OpenAI Codex · tool · openai.com · paid
  OpenAI's coding agent. In the diagram it writes code, fixes review findings and drives the build loop. The creator also used it to make this video.
  Also in: An agent bot that installs and drives Codex on its own (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Asking a Coder bot to install Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Sign in with ChatGPT: Setting Usage Limits for Each App (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Codex Cloud Environments Must Be Saved & Published Before Use (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 240 more
• Claude Code · tool · code.claude.com · paid · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Build agents and pipelines from the terminal; the guide's main agentic coding tool.
  Also in: Create Claude Code Plugins with /plugin-authoring (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Claude Code mods: customize behavior and UI with plugins (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Overview: From ML Foundations to RAG, Agents & Ops (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), SkillsBento: Free Plugin Marketplace for Codex and Claude Code (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 101 more
• Pi · tool · x.com · free
  A customizable coding agent that can be extended through its Extensions API and connected to several model providers.
  Also in: Sign in with ChatGPT: Setting Usage Limits for Each App (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Pi reaches v1.0 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Claude Code mods: customize behavior and UI with plugins (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 39 more
• Hermes · tool · hermes-agent.nousresearch.com · free
  The AI agent the creator uses to automate making explainer videos. It is probably Nous Research's Hermes Agent, but the post does not say so.
  Also in: OpenAI DevDay recap: Dots, GPT-6.1 Sol, Codex Cloud, Agents API (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: free open-source desktop AI coworker app (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Agent Monitor: see traces, tokens and costs of your coding agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: An Open-Source Desktop Agent App for Local and Cloud Models (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 13 more

Try this

• Watch the jsonl-viewer repo for the trace-viewer update.
• Build a viewer that reads JSONL traces from several coding agents and shows them in one place.