followthepid 0.1.2

followThePid is a Python library for tracing the CPU usage and energy consumption of a running process using its PID.

followThePid

followThePid is a Python library for tracing the CPU usage and energy consumption of a running process using its PID. It supports Linux and macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon).

---

Features

• Trace CPU usage and energy per sampling interval
• Option to normalize CPU usage per core (iris mode)
• Uses Intel RAPL and powermetrics for energy measurements
• Built-in support for saving data as:
  • CSV file
  • Pandas DataFrame

---

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• One of:
  • Linux with Intel CPU and RAPL support
  • macOS with Intel CPU or Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)
• sudo/root privileges

Installation

Recommended: Install from PyPI

The easiest way to install followThePid is directly from the PyPI:

pip install followthepid

Alternative: install from source

If you prefer to clone and work on the source code:

git clone https://github.com/se-fbk/followThePid.git
cd followThePid

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

pip install -e ".[test]"

RAPL Permissions

Linux (Intel CPUs)

By default, on recent kernels (≥ 5.10), access is restricted to root, as a security mitigation. To allow non-root reads:

# Example Package 0
sudo chmod o+r /sys/class/powercap/intel-rapl:0/energy_uj 

macOS (Intel and M-series)

Energy estimation rely on powermetrics APIs , sudo is needed.

Usage

import followThePid 
monitor = FollowThePid(
    cmd="python my_script.py",

)

# Start monitoring the process
monitor.monitor() 

# Summary
monitor.samples_csv()

Learn More

For detailed information on how followThePid works, supported architectures, and configuration examples,
see the 📘 Wiki.