evenprocess 0.1.0

A tiny, dependency-free background process manager — nohup + screen with a one-line API.

evenprocess

A tiny, dependency-free background process manager for Python — think nohup + screen, but with a one-line API. Start a process, close your terminal, come back later and check on it, read its logs, restart or stop it.

Works on Linux, macOS and Windows. Pure standard library.

Install

pip install evenprocess

Python API

import evenprocess as ep

# Start a detached process — it survives the terminal/script exiting.
ep.run("python server.py", name="web")

# Or let the name be derived from the command:
proc = ep.run("python worker.py")
print(proc.name, proc.pid, proc.status)

# List everything you manage
for p in ep.ls():
    print(p.name, p.status, p.pid)

# Tail logs (stdout + stderr are merged into one log file)
print(ep.logs("web", lines=100))

# Control
ep.restart("web")
ep.stop("web")          # SIGTERM, then SIGKILL after a timeout
ep.remove("web")        # stop + delete its logs/metadata
ep.clean()              # forget all stopped processes

Each Process object is also fully self-contained:

p = ep.get("web")
p.alive        # bool
p.logs(50)     # str
p.restart()
p.stop()

Useful options

ep.run("ls -la | grep py", shell=True)        # pipes/globs need shell=True
ep.run("python app.py", cwd="/srv/app")       # set working directory
ep.run("python app.py", env={"PORT": "8080"}) # extra environment
ep.run("python app.py", name="web", replace=True)  # replace a running one

CLI

Two entry points are installed: evenprocess and the short alias ep.

evenprocess run "python server.py" -n web    # start detached
evenprocess ls                               # list (add -a for stopped)
evenprocess logs web -f                       # follow output live
evenprocess stop web
evenprocess restart web
evenprocess rm web                            # stop and forget
evenprocess clean                             # drop stopped records

Where things live

Metadata and logs are stored under ~/.evenprocess/<name>/:

• process.json — pid, command, cwd, start time, restart count
• output.log — merged stdout/stderr

Override the location with the EVENPROCESS_HOME environment variable.

How detaching works

On POSIX, processes are started with start_new_session=True (a setsid call) so they get their own session and detach from the controlling terminal; stdio is redirected to the log file. On Windows the equivalent DETACHED_PROCESS | CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP flags are used. This is the same mechanism behind nohup, just packaged behind a friendlier API.

License

MIT