cmd / procman

procman is a process manager for local development on macOS.

It is open source.

Install:

go install github.com/croaky/procman@latest

Define your process definitions in Procfile.dev. For example:

clock: bundle exec ruby cmd/clock.rb
esbuild: bun run buildwatch
queues: bundle exec ruby cmd/queues.rb
web: bundle exec ruby cmd/web.rb

Run processes by naming them in a comma-delimited list:

procman esbuild,web

You must list at least one process. There are no options or flags.

The output from multiple processes will be combined. For example:

esbuild |
esbuild | > buildwatch
esbuild | > node build.mjs --watch
esbuild |
esbuild | watching...
web     | [67296] Puma starting in cluster mode...
web     | [67296] * Puma version: 6.4.2 (ruby 3.3.0-p0) ("The Eagle of Durango")
web     | [67296] *  Min threads: 12
web     | [67296] *  Max threads: 12
web     | [67296] *  Environment: development
web     | [67296] *   Master PID: 67296
web     | [67296] *      Workers: 2
web     | [67296] *     Restarts: (✔) hot (✖) phased
web     | [67296] * Preloading application
web     | [67296] * Listening on http://0.0.0.0:3000
web     | [67296] Use Ctrl-C to stop
web     | [67296] - Worker 1 (PID: 67331) booted in 0.9s, phase: 0
web     | [67296] - Worker 0 (PID: 67330) booted in 0.9s, phase: 0

procman will run its processes until it receives a SIGINT (Ctrl+C), SIGTERM, or SIGHUP.

If one of the processes finishes, it will send a SIGINT to all remaining running processes, wait 5s, and then send a SIGKILL to all remaining processes.

procman runs exactly one process per definition.

It runs the processes in Procfile.dev "as-is"; It does not load environment variables from .env before running.

File watching

Add # watch: PATTERNS to automatically restart a process when files change:

clock: bundle exec ruby cmd/clock.rb    # watch: lib/**/*.rb
esbuild: bun run buildwatch
queues: bundle exec ruby cmd/queues.rb  # watch: lib/**/*.rb
web: bundle exec ruby cmd/web.rb        # watch: lib/**/*.rb,ui/views/**/*.haml

Patterns are relative to the directory containing Procfile.dev. Glob patterns support * (single directory) and ** (recursive). Multiple patterns can be comma-separated. Processes without a watch annotation run without file watching.

On change, procman sends SIGINT, waits for the process to exit, then restarts. Changes are debounced (100ms) to avoid rapid restarts during multi-file saves. Concurrent restarts are serialized per process to avoid races.

This approach handles code reloading at the process manager level, benefiting projects in any language without requiring framework support.

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