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@alexgorbatchev/devhost

Managed daemon-style services

Use daemon lifecycle mode when devhost should own a service, but the service runs in the background or is managed through explicit start / stop commands rather than one long-lived foreground process.

This is the correct mode for services that intentionally daemonize, re-exec into detached workers, or otherwise cannot guarantee that their long-lived process tree will stay attached to the foreground command that devhost started.

Daemon lifecycle services use a nested [services.<name>.lifecycle] table:

  • mode = "daemon" switches the service out of the default foreground command model
  • start and stop are required command arrays
  • status is optional and lets devhost treat an already-running daemon as healthy without re-running start
  • top-level command is invalid in daemon mode
  • managed must stay true
  • port = "auto" and health.process are invalid in daemon mode

Example:

name = "hello-stack"


[services.mailpit]
port = 8025
host = "mail.hello.localhost"
health = { http = "http://127.0.0.1:8025/api/v1/info" }


[services.mailpit.lifecycle]
mode = "daemon"
start = ["./scripts/mailpit-devctl", "start"]
status = ["./scripts/mailpit-devctl", "status"]
stop = ["./scripts/mailpit-devctl", "stop"]

devhost runs lifecycle.start, waits for the service health check, and then installs routes. On shutdown or restart it runs lifecycle.stop. When status exits successfully, devhost treats the daemon as already running and skips start.