Spawn Apps

A utility for managing local application processes, starting them when needed and stopping them after inactivity.

Features

• Start and stop applications with a single line of code

• Automatically manage process lifecycle

• Set custom timeouts for auto-shutdown

• Register custom applications with OS-specific paths

• TypeScript support with type definitions

• Cross-platform support (macOS, Windows, Linux)

TypeScript Setup

This project is now written in TypeScript. The build process generates JavaScript files and TypeScript declaration files (.d.ts) in the dist directory.

To build the project:

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

2. Build the TypeScript code:

   npm run build

   This will compile the TypeScript files to JavaScript in the dist directory.

3. Run the example:

   npm run start:example

Alternatively, you can run the build script which handles all of the above:

./build.sh

Development

• Run in watch mode to automatically recompile on changes:

  npm run dev

• Clean the build directory:

  npm run clean

Usage

After building, you can import the library from the dist directory:

import { startApp, stopApp } from "./dist/index.js";
// Or when installed as a package:
// import { startApp, stopApp } from "spawn-apps";

// Start an application with arguments (returns a Promise)
await startApp("Desktop Crawler", ["--headless", "--firecrawl-headless"]);

// Your application code here...

// Stop the application when done
stopApp("Desktop Crawler");

API Reference

startApp(appName: string, args: string[] = [], timeout: number = DEFAULT_TIMEOUT): Promise<boolean>

Starts an app with the given arguments and sets an auto-shutdown timeout.

stopApp(appName: string, timeout: number = 0): boolean

Stops the app immediately or schedules a stop after the specified timeout.

registerApp(appName: string, options: AppOptions): void

Registers a new app with the registry, specifying bundle ID and OS-specific paths.

License

MIT