🔭 Steady Watch

Intelligent file watcher with content hashing and debouncing. No more ghost rebuilds.

The Problem

Standard file watchers trigger on every save, including:

• Editor auto-saves that don't change content
• IDE temp file operations
• Multiple rapid saves

This leads to unnecessary rebuilds, wasted CPU cycles, and noisy logs.

The Solution

Steady Watch uses MD5 content hashing to detect actual changes. If the file content hasn't changed, no rebuild is triggered. Period.

Installation

npm install -g @laphilosophia/steady-watch

Usage

steady-watch "src/**/*.ts" -c "npm run build"

Or use the short alias:

sw "src/**/*.ts" -c "npm run build"

Options

| Option | Description | Default | |--------|-------------|---------| | -c, --cmd <command> | Command to execute on change | required | | -d, --delay <ms> | Debounce delay in milliseconds | 300 | | -v, --verbose | Show hash calculations and file indexing | false |

Examples

# TypeScript build
sw "src/**/*.ts" -c "npm run build"

# Run tests on change
sw "src/**/*.{ts,tsx}" -c "npm test" -d 500

# Verbose mode to see what's happening
sw "lib/**/*.js" -c "node build.js" -v

Features

• 🎯 Content Hashing — Only triggers when file content actually changes
• ⏱️ Debouncing — Batches rapid changes into single rebuilds
• 🚀 Process Management — Won't start new build while previous is running
• 🚫 Smart Ignores — Auto-ignores node_modules, .git, dist, build
• 🎨 Pretty Output — Color-coded, timestamped logs

Output Example

🔭 Steady Watch Initialized
   Pattern: src/**/*.ts
   Command: npm run build
   Delay:   300ms

👁️  Watcher ready. Monitoring for changes...
   Tracking 12 file(s)

[9:53:26 PM] ⚡ Change detected: index.ts
[9:53:26 PM] 🚀 Triggering: npm run build
[9:53:28 PM] ✔ Done in 2.14s
────────────────────────────────────────

License

MIT © Erdem Arslan