portman

A tiny menu-bar / system-tray app that shows your running dev servers (Node, Bun, Deno, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java, Ollama, …) — with the detected project name and framework — and lets you kill, open, or reveal each one in a click. No more hunting for kill -9 <pid>.

OS daemons and other non-dev processes are filtered out, so you only see what you actually started.

Runs on macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon) and Ubuntu/Linux. Built in Go for a small footprint: a single binary, a few MB of RAM, and ~0% CPU while idle.

⌁ 3   ← live dev-server count on the menu bar
   Refresh
   ──────────────
   🟢 3000 · ⬢ Next.js · my-shop     ▸ http://localhost:3000
   🟢 5173 · ⬢ Vite · landing        ▸ Open in browser
   🟢 8000 · 🐍 FastAPI · billing     ▸ Copy URL · Open in VS Code
   🟢 11434 · 🦙 Ollama · ollama      ▸ Reveal in Finder · Kill
   ──────────────
   Settings ▸  (Refresh 5/15/30s · Show all ports)
   ☐ Start at login   ·   Quit portman

Features

1. Shows only dev servers that are listening — Node, Bun, Deno, Python, Go, Rust, Elixir, Ruby, PHP, Java, .NET, Ollama — hiding OS/system processes. Each row has a runtime glyph and a 🟢/⚪ health dot (does the port still accept connections?), and the menu-bar icon shows a live count.
2. Auto-detects the project from package.json, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Cargo.toml, composer.json, … (walks up from the process's working dir).
3. Identifies the framework: Next.js, Nuxt, Vite, Remix, Astro, SvelteKit, Gatsby, Qwik, SolidStart, RedwoodJS, Angular, Webpack, NestJS, FastAPI, Django, Flask, Rails, Laravel, Spring Boot, Phoenix, Axum/Actix/Rocket, …
4. Per-entry actions: Open in browser, Copy URL, Open in VS Code, Reveal the project folder, Kill (SIGTERM→SIGKILL) / force-kill; the submenu also shows the full URL plus uptime, PID, CPU and memory.
5. Settings: refresh cadence (5/15/30s) and a Show all ports escape hatch — persisted to ~/.config/portman/config.json.
6. Start at login toggle, right in the menu.
7. Resource-efficient: lazy refresh + manual Refresh; per-PID metadata cache so manifests aren't re-read every tick; bounded concurrent health probes.
8. Small, modular Go codebase.

Install

npm (macOS + Linux, one command)

npm install -g @lvdtvd/portman
portman                 # launches into the menu bar / tray

postinstall downloads the prebuilt binary for your platform from the latest release. On Linux, if the tray icon does not appear:

sudo apt-get install -y libgtk-3-0 libayatana-appindicator3-1

Homebrew (mainly macOS)

brew install avlunvu/tap/portman
portman

Manual download

Grab the asset for your platform from the Releases page:

• macOS — unzip PortManager-macos-<arch>.zip, move Port Manager.app to /Applications. Unsigned, so first launch: right-click → Open. Lives in the menu bar (no Dock icon).
• Ubuntu/Linux — extract portman-linux-amd64.tar.gz and run ./portman/install.sh. On GNOME, enable the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem extension so the tray icon appears.

Auto-run at login

portman does not start automatically after install. To enable it, open the tray menu and tick Start at login (untick to disable). Under the hood this writes a macOS LaunchAgent (~/Library/LaunchAgents/vn.redsun.portman.plist) or an XDG autostart entry (~/.config/autostart/portman.desktop).

Build from source

Requires Go 1.22+ and a C toolchain (CGO is used by the tray library).

# Linux build deps
sudo apt-get install -y gcc libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev

go build -o portman ./cmd/portman
./portman

CGO means the app cannot be cross-compiled — build on each target OS. The release workflow does this via a macos-14 / macos-13 / ubuntu matrix.

Project layout

cmd/portman/        entrypoint (systray.Run on the main goroutine)
internal/model/     shared types (ListenPort, Lang)
internal/ports/     list listening ports via gopsutil (+ LISTEN filter, dedupe)
internal/runtime/   map a process to its runtime/language
internal/proc/      kill (SIGTERM→SIGKILL) and read CPU/memory stats
internal/tray/      systray menu: fixed item pool + refresh loop
build/macos/        Info.plist (LSUIElement) + .app bundler
build/linux/        .desktop launcher + per-user installer

Permissions

portman manages your own processes. Ports owned by other users or the system report no PID without elevation and are hidden. Killing another user's process fails with a permission error (surfaced in the tray tooltip).

Develop / test

go vet ./...
go test ./internal/...   # ports, runtime and proc are unit-tested headless