Process Compose — Orchestrate Non-Containerized Processes

Introduction

Process Compose brings Docker Compose semantics to bare-metal processes. It lets you define, order, and monitor multiple local services in a single YAML file with dependency graphs, health checks, and restart policies. A built-in TUI or web UI shows real-time status, logs, and controls — without requiring containers.

What Process Compose Does

• Manages multiple local processes defined in a process-compose.yaml file
• Supports dependency ordering with health check conditions before starting dependents
• Provides readiness and liveness probes (exec, HTTP, or TCP)
• Includes a terminal UI dashboard showing status, logs, and restart controls per process
• Offers a REST API and optional web UI for remote monitoring

Architecture Overview

Process Compose is a single Go binary that parses the YAML config, builds a dependency DAG, and starts processes in topological order. Each process runs as a child with captured stdout/stderr streams. A health-check scheduler polls readiness probes and updates the dependency state machine. The TUI layer renders a process list with live status indicators and scrollable log output. An embedded HTTP server optionally exposes a REST API and web dashboard.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Install via Homebrew, Go install, Nix, or download a prebuilt binary
• Define services in process-compose.yaml at the project root
• Configure per-process environment variables, working directories, and restart policies
• Use readiness probes to gate dependent processes until backends are ready
• Enable the web UI with --port 8080 for browser-based monitoring

Key Features

• Docker Compose-style YAML for defining local multi-service development environments
• Dependency graph with health check gating ensures correct startup ordering
• Built-in TUI with per-process log streaming, restart, and stop controls
• REST API and web UI for remote monitoring of long-running process sets
• Namespace support for running subsets of processes from the same config file

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Docker Compose — Container-focused; Process Compose manages bare processes
• mprocs — Simpler multi-process TUI, no dependency ordering or health checks
• Foreman / Overmind — Procfile-based with interleaved output, no dependency graph
• Tilt — Kubernetes-centric development tool with live update, heavier setup
• just + background jobs — Manual scripting approach, no monitoring or health checks

FAQ

Q: How does this differ from Docker Compose? A: Process Compose manages native OS processes, not containers. No Docker daemon is required. It is ideal when containerizing every service adds unnecessary overhead.

Q: Can I define dependencies between processes? A: Yes. Use depends_on with condition: process_healthy or process_completed_successfully to order startup based on health probe results.

Q: Does it support auto-restart on crash? A: Yes. Set restart: on_failure or restart: always per process to enable automatic restarts with configurable backoff.

Q: Can I run only a subset of services? A: Yes. Use process-compose up frontend backend to start named processes, or define namespaces to group related services.

Sources

• https://github.com/F1bonacc1/process-compose
• https://f1bonacc1.github.io/process-compose/