dotrun

A super simple app runner script

The Problem

Every app I work on seems to have a different way of running it, and I couldn't keep track. I wanted to be able to navigate to any app directory in the terminal and run a simple command to launch the app in focus.

The Solution

This simple ruby script expects a file called .run in the current directory with an instruction to execute. Put the script somewhere on your machine, make it executable with chmod +x and symlink it to somewhere in your path (e.g., ln -s /usr/local/dotrun /path/to/dotrun.rb) and you can run it from anywhere that you've defined a .run file.

Simply navigate to the directory of your app, and run

dotrun

and it will run the command you've specified. It will also clear your terminal and tell you some useful information like the current git branch, and hitting Ctrl+C will terminate the process (gracefully, hopefully).

For even more usefulness, you can provide multiple commands in the file to specify different things to launch. For example:

server: unicorn_rails --host 127.0.0.1
console: rails c
sidekiq: bundle exec sidekiq
log: tail -f log/development.log

You can then run

dotrun server

to run the unicorn script above.

List directives

To get a list of possible directives for the current directory:

dotrun -?

Run multiple commands at once

This feature requires that ttab is installed. Run multiple commands in different tabs of your terminal window by specifying an array of commands in your .run directives file. For example:

default:
  - server
  - log
  - console
server: unicorn_rails --host 127.0.0.1
console: rails c
log: tail -f log/development.log

When you run dotrun in this case, each command will open up in a new terminal tab. You can also specify many of these multi-directives by including other array items in the yaml configuration.

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License

Feel free to use this if you think it might be valuable to you! This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any means.

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this software under copyright law.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

For more information, please refer to http://unlicense.org