knows

A minimal cross-platform CLI that knows what’s running — list, inspect, and kill processes easily.

What it does

knows helps you discover which local processes are listening on specific ports, inspect their details, and terminate them when necessary. It supports macOS, Linux, and Windows by shelling out to familiar system tools (lsof or netstat) and enriches results so you can see the command behind each listening port. An interactive mode lets you pick ports and processes with arrow keys before choosing to inspect or kill them.

Quickstart

Install globally using npm, then run the CLI:

npm i -g knows
knows list

Or run it locally without installing globally:

pnpm install
pnpm run build
# optionally link the CLI
pnpm link --global

After linking, the knows command is available globally. Alternatively, run it with pnpm exec:

pnpm exec knows list

Example commands

• knows list – list all listening processes.
• knows list --port 3000 – filter to port 3000.
• knows inspect 8080 – inspect port 8080.
• knows kill 5000 – terminate every listener on port 5000 (returns non-zero when --force is supplied and a process could not be killed).
• knows watch – monitor listening processes in real time (press Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Q to exit). Use --port to focus on a specific port or --interval to adjust the refresh rate.
• knows interactive – launch interactive mode with arrow-key navigation across ports and processes.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.