Coldstart

Keep your services warm and prevent cold starts before demos, interviews, and presentations.

The Problem

Serverless platforms and free-tier hosting (Render, Heroku, Railway, etc.) spin down services after inactivity. When someone visits, the service takes 30-60 seconds to cold start - loading dependencies, establishing connections, and initializing.

This causes issues during:

• Job interviews
• Client demos
• Hackathon presentations
• Live showcases

The Solution

Coldstart wakes up your services and keeps them warm by sending regular HTTP requests. Simple, effective, zero configuration needed.

Quick Start

npx coldstart

That's it. The CLI will guide you through the rest.

Features

• Interactive CLI - Answer a few questions, done
• Multi-service support - Wake up your frontend, backend, WebSocket servers, all at once
• HTTP & WebSocket detection - Automatically handles different server types
• Keep-alive mode - Continuously ping services every 5 minutes
• Parallel warmup - All services wake up simultaneously
• Beautiful output - Real-time progress with spinners and status updates

How It Works

Step 1: Configuration

? How many services? 3
? Name: Frontend
? URL: https://myapp.com
? Type: HTTP Server

Step 2: Warmup Process

The CLI runs through three stages:

1. Wake - Sends initial requests to all services
2. Initialize - Waits 20 seconds for dependencies to load
3. Verify - Confirms services are stable with multiple checks

Step 3: Keep-Alive (Optional)

? Enable keep-alive mode? Yes

♻️  Keep-Alive Mode
  Pinging every 5 minutes
  Press Ctrl+C to stop

Your services stay warm as long as the script runs.

Usage Examples

Basic Usage

npx coldstart

Multiple Services

Perfect for microservices architecture:

• Frontend (React/Next.js)
• Backend API (Node.js/Python)
• WebSocket server
• Database proxy

Before Important Events

Run 5 minutes before your:

• Technical interviews
• Client presentations
• Demo day pitches
• Hackathon judging

Status Codes

HTTP Servers

• 200, 301, 302, 304 = Ready ✓

WebSocket Servers

• 426 (Upgrade Required) = Ready ✓
• 101 (Switching Protocols) = Ready ✓

Requirements

• Node.js 14 or higher
• Services must be publicly accessible (HTTPS/HTTP)

Why This Works

Serverless and free-tier platforms shut down services to save resources. A simple HTTP request forces them to wake up. By pinging regularly, they never go back to sleep.

Technical Details:

• Uses axios for HTTP requests
• 30-second timeout per request
• Parallel execution with Promise.all
• Handles both HTTP and WebSocket protocols

Installation

As a one-off command (recommended):

npx coldstart

Global installation:

npm install -g coldstart
coldstart

Development

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/Acid-OP/coldstart.git
cd coldstart

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run dev

# Build
npm run build

# Test locally
npm link
coldstart

License

MIT © Acid-OP

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome. Keep it simple.

Built for developers who need their services ready when it matters.