Focus

Focus lets you highlight traffic from specific hosts in the traffic view. Unlike a filter (which hides non-matching traffic entirely), focus visually emphasizes matching rows while keeping all traffic visible — so you can spot the hosts you care about in a busy stream without losing context.

Focus vs Filter

Aspect	Filter	Focus
Non-matching traffic	Hidden	Dimmed (but still visible)
Matching traffic	Shown normally	Bold + yellow left border + star icon
Use case	Narrow down to specific requests	Spot specific hosts in a busy stream
Persistence	Session-based	Stored in SQLite — survives restarts

Two Modes

1. Highlight mode (default): All traffic is visible. Rows whose host matches a focus pattern are highlighted with a yellow left border, a star icon, and bold domain text. Non-matching rows are dimmed (50% opacity).

2. Focus-only mode: Toggle "Show only focused" in the Focus panel to hide non-matching rows entirely — like a filter, but driven by your focus patterns.

Pattern Syntax

Focus patterns are case-insensitive and support:

Pattern	Matches	Example
api.example.com	Exact host or any subdomain	api.example.com, sub.api.example.com
*.example.com	Wildcard subdomain (not the bare domain)	api.example.com, sub.example.com
*api*	Glob — any host containing api	api.example.com, myapi.service.com
api.*	Glob — starts with api.	api.example.com, api.service.io

Using the Web UI

The Focus Panel

Click the Focus button in the traffic sub-toolbar to open the Focus panel sidebar. From there you can:

• Add a focus host pattern (type and press Enter, or click +)
• Remove individual focus hosts (hover a row and click ×)
• Clear all focus hosts (trash icon in the panel header)
• Toggle "Show only focused" to switch between highlight mode and focus-only mode

Right-Click "Focus this host"

Right-click any traffic row and select Focus this host to instantly add its host as a focus pattern. This is the quickest way to focus on a specific service you see in the list.

Using the CLI

madhyamas focus list                  # List all focus host patterns
madhyamas focus add api.example.com   # Add a focus host
madhyamas focus add "*.example.com"   # Add a wildcard pattern
madhyamas focus remove <id>          # Remove a focus host by ID
madhyamas focus clear                 # Clear all focus hosts

Persistence

Focus hosts are stored in the SQLite database alongside your traffic. They persist across restarts, so your focus setup is ready the next time you launch the proxy.

Common Use Cases

Tracking a Specific Service

While debugging a multi-service app, focus on the one service you're actively investigating. Its requests stand out immediately, even when hundreds of other requests are flowing through the proxy.

Comparing Environments

Add focus patterns for both your staging and production API hosts to compare their traffic side by side in the same view.

Monitoring a Third-Party Integration

Focus on a third-party API host (e.g. a payment provider) to watch every call your app makes to it, without losing sight of the surrounding traffic.

See also

• Traffic Inspection — filtering and searching captured traffic
• Timeline View — waterfall visualization
• Sessions — separating traffic into named groups
• REST API reference — /api/focus endpoints