cli-killport

Kill any process occupying a port. Unix-first, zero-zombie, one command.

  █ ▄█ █▀█  █  █ █  █ █▀▀█ █▀▀█ █▀▀▄ ▀██▀
  ██▀  █ █  █  █ █  █ █▀▀  █ █ ██▀   ██
  █ ▀█ ▀ ▀  ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ █    ▀▀▀▀ █ ▀█  ▀▀

Install

# Use directly with npx (no install needed)
npx cli-killport 1420

# Or install globally
npm i -g cli-killport
killport 1420

# Short alias
kp 1420

What it does

1. Finds every process bound to the given port (lsof, fuser, ss)
2. Shows you what it found — PID, name, user, command, state, children
3. Kills the entire process tree bottom-up (children first → parent last)
4. Sends SIGTERM → brief grace → SIGKILL (-9) → kills process group
5. Reaps zombie children by signaling parent processes
6. Verifies the port is actually free before exiting

Usage

killport <port> [options]

Options

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | -h, --help | Show help | | -v, --version | Show version | | -s, --silent | Suppress banner and verbose output |

Examples

killport 1420     # Kill whatever is on port 1420
killport 3000     # Free up port 3000
kp 5173           # Short alias
npx cli-killport 8080  # No install needed

Platforms

• macOS — first-class support via lsof
• Linux — lsof → fuser → ss fallback chain

Why

Because lsof -i :1420 | awk '{print $2}' | tail -1 | xargs kill -9 is not a real workflow. And it leaves zombie children behind.

License

MIT