pm — process manager

Docker-compose-like process manager. Runs any command, not limited to Node/Bun.

Install

cargo build --release
# Binary at target/release/pm

Config

Create pm.yaml in your project root:

services:
  web:
    command: python3 -m http.server 8080
    environment:
      PYTHONUNBUFFERED: "1"
    depends_on:
      - logger
    restart: on-failure

  logger:
    command: bash -c "while true; do echo \"$(date +%T) heartbeat\"; sleep 5; done"

  worker:
    command: bash -c "echo 'worker started'; sleep infinity"

See pm.example.yml for a full example.

All fields except command are optional. working_dir defaults to the config directory.

Usage

pm                  # launch TUI (default)
pm up               # start all services (starts daemon if needed)
pm up api db        # start named services
pm stop             # stop all
pm stop api         # stop named
pm restart           # restart all
pm status            # print status table
pm logs api          # tail logs
pm logs api -f       # follow logs
pm reload            # reload config without restart
pm shutdown          # shut down daemon
pm tui               # launch interactive TUI

TUI keybindings

Key	Action
↑/↓ or k/j	Navigate services
s / Enter	Start selected
x	Stop selected
r	Restart selected
a	Start all
z	Stop all
R (shift)	Reload config
q	Quit TUI (services keep running)

State

Runtime state stored in .pm/ next to your config:

.pm/
├── pm.sock     # daemon socket
├── pids/       # PID files per service
└── logs/       # log files per service

Add .pm/ to .gitignore.

Restart policies

• no (default) — no auto-restart
• on-failure — restart on non-zero exit
• always — restart on any exit

Exponential backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s, 32s cap.