Kickstart

Kickstart automates the process of starting and orchestrating multi-process local development environments. Define your services, their readiness conditions, and dependencies declaratively in your kickstart.toml:

[services]

[services.backend]
command = "python3 -u backend.py"
ready_condition = { port = 8000 }

[services.seed]
command = "python3 -u seed.py"
depends_on = ["backend"]
ready_condition = { exitcode = 0 }

[services.frontend]
command = "python3 -u frontend.py"
depends_on = ["backend"]
ready_condition = { port = 3000 }

Then run:

$ kickstart up

Kickstart will create a DAG from your configuration and execute each service in dependency order by traversing the graph. Once all services are ready, kickstart will notify you.

Installing

Clone the repo, then install with cargo install:

$ git clone https://github.com/rk234/kickstart
$ cd kickstart
$ cargo install --path .

Commands

Configuration is loaded from the current working directory by default. You can specify an alternative config file with the --config flag. There are two commands:

kickstart services [--json]

Lists services in a table including their start stage and dependencies. The --json flag serializes the output as a JSON object for easy parsing by other tools. When configuration is invalid, validation errors are outputted as well.

kickstart up

Starts services in dependency order. Each service's stdout and stderr are included in the command output with labeled by their corresponding service ID. Gracefully exits each service on SIGTERM.

Configuration

Configuring a service is simple:

[services.{service-id}]
name = "human readable name"
command = "what to execute"
depends_on = [{list other valid service IDs here}]
ready_condition = { port = 3000 } | "immediate" | {exitcode = 0} | {delay = 1000(ms)}

Ready conditions

Kickstart supports a variety of readiness conditions. Once a service is marked ready its dependents are executed.

• Immediate: Service is immediately marked ready after it starts
• Port: Service is marked ready when the specified port begins accepting connections
• Exit code: Service is marked ready when it exits with the specified exit code
• Delay: Service is marked ready after the specified delay milliseconds pass since starting

Environment variables

Ready condition values can reference environment variables with {VAR} or {VAR:-default}:

ready_condition = { port = "{BACKEND_PORT:-8000}" }

Kickstart loads .env from the current directory by default if it exists, or a different file passed with --env. Variables already set in your shell take precedence over the file. Loaded variables are also passed to each service's command.

Examples

See the examples/basic for a basic example config, and examples/env for the same setup with its ports set in a .env file, used both in the ready conditions and by the services themselves.