README
¶
Kranz
A keyboard-first local service orchestrator with a focused terminal UI.
Kranz starts, observes, and stops a local development stack from one terminal. It understands dependency order, readiness and liveness, process groups, runtime ports, logs, one-shot actions, and detached infrastructure whose life is not tied to a local PID.
It runs in the foreground without a daemon or control plane. Use it for the processes you would otherwise spread across terminal tabs, alongside Docker Compose when containers remain the right home for infrastructure.
Quick start
Install on macOS or Linux:
brew install kranz-org/tap/kranz
Or with Go 1.24 or newer:
go install github.com/kranz-org/kranz/cmd/kranz@latest
Create a Procfile:
web: python3 -u -m http.server 8000 --bind 127.0.0.1
worker: while true; do date; sleep 2; done
Run kranz, press a to select everything, then s to start. Kranz discovers
the web listener automatically and shows both services' state and logs.
Already using a supported process-compose.yaml? Run kranz beside it. Use
native kranz.yaml when you need the complete lifecycle model.
Command line
The TUI is optional. Kranz 0.8 adds a complete CLI for starting a project in the background, inspecting it from another terminal, acting on services, and returning stable JSON to scripts:
kranz init --from Procfile
kranz config check
kranz up -d
kranz status
kranz logs api --tail 20
kranz restart api
kranz down
Use kranz --help to discover commands, kranz COMMAND --help for command
options, and --output json for the versioned machine-readable envelope. See
Working from the command line
for a complete session and the CLI reference
for every command, option, output contract, and exit code.
What it handles
- Dependency-aware startup and reverse-order shutdown
- HTTP, TCP, and command readiness/liveness checks
- Process recovery with backoff and restart limits
- Managed and observe-only detached resources with start/stop/status/logs
- Service actions and project action groups with timeout and confirmation
- Prerequisites that must succeed before a service starts
- Runtime port discovery and ownership-aware conflict handling
- Searchable, pinnable, timestamped logs in a keyboard and mouse TUI
- Procfile, native YAML, and conservative Process Compose loading
- Live configuration reload with last-known-good fallback
Documentation
- Getting started
- Working from the command line
- Configuration and lifecycle
- Configuration reference
- Annotated kranz.yaml
- CLI reference
- Keyboard controls
- Troubleshooting
- Runnable examples
The documentation source lives in docs/ and is deployed to
kranz-org.github.io/kranz/ from main.
Development
make verify
make lint
npm install
npm run docs:dev
Release instructions are in docs/RELEASING.md.
License
Directories
¶
| Path | Synopsis |
|---|---|
|
cmd
|
|
|
kranz
command
Package main provides the Kranz command-line entry point.
|
Package main provides the Kranz command-line entry point. |
|
internal
|
|
|
app
Package app is the shared application layer between Kranz's delivery surfaces.
|
Package app is the shared application layer between Kranz's delivery surfaces. |
|
cli
Package cli defines Kranz's command grammar independently from command execution.
|
Package cli defines Kranz's command grammar independently from command execution. |
|
config
Package config defines, loads, merges, and validates Kranz configurations.
|
Package config defines, loads, merges, and validates Kranz configurations. |
|
health
Package health runs independent readiness and liveness probes for services.
|
Package health runs independent readiness and liveness probes for services. |
|
log
Package log classifies, sanitizes, and searches captured service output.
|
Package log classifies, sanitizes, and searches captured service output. |
|
port
Package port detects listeners and safely releases externally owned ports.
|
Package port detects listeners and safely releases externally owned ports. |
|
runtime
Package runtime carries the application layer (internal/app) across a process boundary over a local Unix socket, so a delivery surface no longer has to run in the same process as the runtime it drives.
|
Package runtime carries the application layer (internal/app) across a process boundary over a local Unix socket, so a delivery surface no longer has to run in the same process as the runtime it drives. |
|
service
Package service manages process lifecycles, dependency ordering, and recovery.
|
Package service manages process lifecycles, dependency ordering, and recovery. |
|
settings
Package settings persists user-level Kranz preferences.
|
Package settings persists user-level Kranz preferences. |
|
ui
Package ui contains the Kranz terminal interface.
|
Package ui contains the Kranz terminal interface. |
|
pkg
|
|
|
ringbuffer
Package ringbuffer provides a concurrency-safe, fixed-capacity string buffer.
|
Package ringbuffer provides a concurrency-safe, fixed-capacity string buffer. |