bare-sidecar

Start and manage Bare sidecar processes from Node.js and Electron. A sidecar is a separate Bare process spawned from a host runtime, with a dedicated IPC channel exposed as a duplex stream on both ends.

npm i bare-sidecar

Usage

In the host process:

const Sidecar = require('bare-sidecar')

const sidecar = new Sidecar(require.resolve('./entry'))

sidecar
  .on('exit', (code, status) => {
    // The sidecar process exited
  })
  .on('data', (data) => {
    // Received data from the sidecar over IPC
  })
  .write('Hello sidecar')

In the sidecar entry (entry.js), the IPC channel is available as a stream on Bare.IPC:

Bare.IPC.on('data', (data) => Bare.IPC.write(data))

API

const sidecar = new Sidecar(entry[, args][, options])

Spawn a bundled Bare runtime running entry and return a Sidecar. entry is the path to the module to run, typically resolved with require.resolve(). args is an array of additional command line arguments passed to the process. options is reserved for future use.

Sidecar extends a duplex stream. Writing to the stream sends data to the sidecar over its IPC channel, and data received from the sidecar over the same channel is emitted as 'data' events. Destroying the stream kills the sidecar process.

The correct prebuilt Bare binary for the current platform and architecture is selected automatically and made executable on first use.

sidecar.stdin

The writable standard input stream of the underlying process.

sidecar.stdout

The readable standard output stream of the underlying process.

sidecar.stderr

The readable standard error stream of the underlying process.

event: 'exit'

Emitted when the sidecar process exits, with the arguments code and status. code is the exit code, or null if the process was terminated by a signal. status is the signal name that terminated the process, or null if it exited normally.

event: 'close'

Emitted after the sidecar process has exited and the stream has been destroyed.

License

Apache-2.0