watchman: A Go repository from deckarep

Watchman

Objective

This tool currently only targets MacOS desktop environments and acts as a background process which monitors a designated folder that allows a user the ability to drag and drop files to a designated folder which causes a command to be executed for each file. This background process is meant to be very simple to use and tweak the behavior of the command so as not to incapacitate the user's computer.

Developer Note

This tool is not yet stable or well documented and not yet production ready. Use at your own risk.

Configuration

Here is a sample configuration for an imaginary command line tool called oggify that converts .ogg files to .mp3. Such a tool is not part of this repo but a tool that you would find suitable to be regularly used in your conversion workflow. Perhaps a tool such as ffmpeg or a tool that can convert .doc files to .pdf as an example.

{
  "primary_interval": "30s",
  "max_workers": 3,
  "entries": [
    {
      "name": "oggify.mp3.to.ogg.converter",
      "interval": "2m",
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/oggify",
      "args": [
        "--in",
        "{SOURCE_FILE}",
        "--out",
        "{DEST_FILE}",
        "--additional-args"
      ],
      "folder": "~/Desktop/folder-to-watch/",
      "from_ext": ".mp3",
      "to_ext": ".ogg"
    }
  ]
}

Usage

Installation

First, install Watchman using the usual Go toolchain commands.

go get github.com/deckarep/watchman
go build

Next, create your config: config.json file as needed and refer to the sample above.

Install the service using:

./Watchman install config/your_config.json

If everything worked correctly, your service config file and the Watchman binary were copied here. The Watchman binary acts both a controller for you; the end user but is also responsible for running your service configs as needed:

/Users/{USER}/Library/Application Support/com.{USER}.scripts.go.watchman.svc

Additionally, the service should be running at this point:

./Watchman status

# Output:
# Command.status: "running" , Current PID: 60098, Last exit status: 0

To stop or remove the service:

# TODO

Troubleshooting:

Watchman can run locally while you are trying to work out your config file and conversion binaries. Just invoke it with no arguments.

./Watchman

Tailing the service logs:

tail -f /tmp/com.{USER}.scripts.go.watchman.svc.log

Ignore below, this tool will now manage the creation of launch configs.

Creating a MacOS launch config to manage this process