Hivemind is a process manager for Procfile-based applications. At the moment, it supports Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS.
Procfile is a simple format to specify types of processes your application provides (such as web application server, background queue process, front-end builder) and commands to run those processes. It can significantly simplify process management for developers and is used by popular Platforms-as-a-Service, such as Heroku. You can learn more about the Procfile format here.
There are some good Procfile-based process management tools, including foreman by David Dollar, which started it all. The problem with most of those tools is that processes you want to manage start to think they are logging their output into a file, and that can lead to all sorts of problems: severe lagging, losing or breaking colored output. Tools can also add vanity information (unneeded timestamps in logs). Hivemind was created to fix those problems once and for all.
Hivemind uses pty to capture process output. That fixes any problem with log clipping, delays, and TTY colors other process management tools may have.
If you would like a process management tool with a lot of features, including tmux support, restarting and killing individual processes and advanced configuration, you should take a look at Hivemind’s big brother—Overmind!
