How it works
A little dog in your menu bar
Collie sits in the menu bar as a little dog. You give it a list of apps and project services, each with its own switch, and it keeps an eye on them.
- It turns orange while it's restarting something.
- It turns red when something needs you, and the menu names exactly what's wrong.
Services
In Settings there's a Services section. Choose Add Service… and point it at a repo folder. If the project has scripts/launch.sh and scripts/launch.json, Collie recognises how to start it (how to set up a repo). If it doesn't know how, it tells you so rather than guessing.
I use it for UX Brighton's local site. When it's down, Collie gives the reason in plain words – things like “uxbri.local doesn't resolve” – rather than a wall of logs.
Right-click any item and choose Show Details… to see what Collie checked and what it found.
Why I built it
I'd set a bot to keep an eye on a long task, and partway through the monitoring fell apart – it decided a server was down when really the app just wasn't responding properly. I wanted something small and boring that asks “are you actually responding?” and, if the answer's no, gives it a nudge.
Process supervisors have been around for decades. Collie is for people who know their way around a machine but don't want to write unit files or babysit config just to keep a local site and a few apps up.