🚀 startall

A powerful, interactive terminal UI for managing multiple npm scripts with tmux-style panes, filtering, and real-time control

The Problem

Running multiple npm scripts during development is tedious:

• Repetitive: Manually typing npm run frontend, npm run backend, etc. every time
• Cluttered terminal: Multiple terminal tabs/windows get messy fast
• No visibility: Hard to tell if one process crashed while others are running
• No control: Can't easily restart a single service without restarting everything
• No filtering: Output from 4+ processes becomes unreadable noise

Traditional solutions fall short:

• npm-run-all/concurrently: No interactivity, just dumps output
• PM2: Overkill for dev workflows, designed for production
• Overmind: Amazing UX but requires tmux (not Windows-friendly)
• Manual shell scripts: No real-time status or control

The Solution

startall is a sophisticated TUI that combines the power of tmux with the simplicity of npm scripts, giving you complete control over your development processes with split panes, filtering, and interactive controls.

Features

🎯 Core Features

• Auto-discovery: Automatically reads all scripts from package.json
• Smart defaults: Remembers your last selection in startall.json
• 10-second countdown: Review selections before starting
• Parallel execution: Run multiple npm scripts simultaneously
• Live status monitoring: Real-time status indicators (● running, ✖ crashed, ○ stopped)
• Interactive controls: Start, stop, and restart individual processes on the fly
• Cross-platform: Works identically on Windows, Linux, and macOS

🎨 Advanced UI

• Multi-pane layout: tmux-inspired split panes (vertical & horizontal)
• Flexible filtering:
  • Text search across all output (/)
  • Filter by ANSI color (red/yellow/green/blue/cyan/magenta) (c)
  • Per-process visibility toggles (Space or 1-9)
  • Per-pane filters (different views in each pane)
• Custom pane naming: Label panes for easier identification (n)
• Column view: Instant one-pane-per-script layout with = key (toggle back to restore your layout)
• Persistent layouts: Your pane configuration is saved between sessions
• Process-specific views: Show/hide specific processes in each pane
• Colored output: Each process gets unique color-coded output
• Copy mode: Select and copy output lines to clipboard (y)
• Pause/resume: Freeze output to review logs (p)
• Scrollable history: 1000-line buffer with mouse wheel support
• Enhanced navigation: Home/End/PageUp/PageDown keys

⚙️ Display Options

• Toggleable line numbers: Show/hide line numbers (#)
• Timestamps: Show/hide timestamps for each log line (t)
• Quick process toggle: Use number keys 1-9 for instant visibility control

🔧 Advanced Controls

• Quick Commands: Run any script on-demand without adding it to the persistent processes
  • Press e to open command picker and select any script
  • Or assign keyboard shortcuts for instant access (press assigned key to run)
  • Perfect for build scripts, tests, or any short-running command
  • Output shown in popup overlay with Esc to close
  • Configure shortcuts in settings (o → Quick Commands section)
• Interactive input mode: Send commands to running processes via stdin (i)
  • Perfect for dev servers that accept commands (Vite, Rust watch, etc.)
• Settings panel: Configure ignore/include patterns, shortcuts, and more (o)
  • Wildcard support (*) for pattern matching
  • Per-script visibility toggles
• Git integration: Commit and push directly from the TUI (g)
  • Auto-detects git repositories
  • Shows branch name in the footer
  • View staged, modified, and untracked files
  • Stage all changes, write a commit message, and push - all without leaving the TUI
• Keyboard & mouse support: Full keyboard navigation + mouse clicking/scrolling
• VSCode integration: Optimized for VSCode integrated terminal

Installation

npm install -g startall

Usage

In any project with a package.json:

startall                    # uses startall.json if present
startall myconfig.json      # uses custom config file

That's it! The TUI will:

1. Show all available npm scripts
2. Pre-select your last choices
3. Give you 10 seconds to adjust
4. Start all selected scripts in parallel

Keyboard Shortcuts

Selection Screen:

• ↑/↓ - Navigate scripts
• Space - Toggle selection
• Enter - Start immediately (skip countdown)
• o - Open settings
• Ctrl+C - Exit

Running Screen:

Process Control:

• 1-9 - Quick toggle process visibility in focused pane
• Space - Toggle visibility of selected process
• s - Stop/start selected process
• r - Restart selected process
• i - Send input to selected process (interactive mode)
• e - Execute any script (opens command picker)
• a-z - Run assigned quick command (if configured)

Pane Management:

• \ - Open command palette
• | - Split pane vertically (left/right)
• _ - Split pane horizontally (top/bottom)
• = - Toggle column view (one column per script, auto-generated)
• x - Close current pane (if >1 pane exists)
• Tab - Next pane
• Shift+Tab - Previous pane
• n - Name current pane

Copy Mode:

• y - Enter copy mode (select text to copy to clipboard)
• ↑/↓ or k/j - Move cursor
• Home/End or g/G - Jump to first/last line
• Page Up/Page Down - Scroll by page
• Space - Start/clear selection from cursor
• Enter or y - Copy selected lines (or current line) to clipboard
• Esc or q - Exit copy mode

Filtering & View:

• / - Enter text filter mode
• c - Cycle color filter (red/yellow/green/blue/cyan/magenta/none)
• f - Filter to selected process only
• Esc - Clear filters
• p - Pause/resume output scrolling
• # - Toggle line numbers
• t - Toggle timestamps

Navigation:

• ↑/↓ or k/j - Select process (vim-style)
• ←/→ or h/l - Select process (vim-style)
• Home - Scroll to top of pane
• End - Scroll to bottom of pane
• Page Up - Scroll up one page
• Page Down - Scroll down one page
• Mouse wheel - Scroll output

Other:

• g - Open git modal (commit & push, only in git repos)
• o - Open settings
• q - Quit (stops all processes)
• Ctrl+C - Force quit

Settings Screen:

• Tab/←/→ - Switch sections (Display/Ignore/Include/Quick Commands/Script List)
• ↑/↓ - Navigate items
• i - Add new ignore pattern
• n - Add new include pattern
• Space or Enter - Toggle option (Display) / Assign shortcut (Quick Commands) / Toggle ignore (Script List)
• d or Backspace - Delete pattern or shortcut
• Esc or q - Return to previous screen

Run Command Picker:

• ↑/↓ or k/j - Navigate scripts
• Enter - Run selected script
• Esc or q - Close picker

Quick Commands Overlay:

• Esc - Close overlay and stop command (if running)

Git Modal (press g from Running Screen, only in git repos):

• a - Stage all changes
• c - Start writing commit message
• p - Push to remote
• r - Refresh git status
• ↑/↓ - Navigate file list
• Esc or q - Close git modal
• When writing commit message:
  • Enter - Stage all and commit
  • Esc - Cancel and go back to status

Why Build This?

Existing tools either:

• Lack interactivity (concurrently, npm-run-all)
• Are production-focused (PM2, forever)
• Don't support Windows (Overmind, tmux-based tools)
• Are too heavyweight for simple dev workflows

Start is purpose-built for the development workflow: lightweight, cross-platform, and interactive.

Technical Details

• Built with OpenTUI for a modern terminal UI
• Uses standard Node.js child_process (no PTY required = Windows support)
• Parses package.json scripts automatically
• Saves configuration in startall.json:

  {
    "defaultSelection": ["frontend", "backend"],
    "include": ["dev:*"],
    "ignore": ["*:test"],
    "shortcuts": {
      "b": "build",
      "t": "test",
      "l": "lint"
    }
  }

  • defaultSelection: scripts to auto-select on startup
  • include (optional): if defined, only scripts matching these patterns are shown
  • ignore: scripts matching these patterns are hidden
  • shortcuts: keyboard shortcuts for running commands on-demand
  • All patterns support wildcards (*)

Roadmap

• [ ] Interactive process control (start/stop/restart)
• [ ] Real-time status indicators
• [ ] Output filtering and search
• [ ] Tab view for individual process logs
• [ ] Resource monitoring
• [ ] Custom color schemes
• [ ] Configuration file support
• [ ] Watch mode (restart on file changes)

Contributing

PRs welcome! This is a tool built by developers, for developers.

License

MIT