One-button start and stop

Starting a local app from a desktop GUI sounds trivial until PATH, child processes, and leftover PIDs enter the chat. Zashiki Warashi treats start/stop as a first-class lifecycle — not a fire-and-forget Terminal paste.

Inference, then override

When you add a project, the app looks for common start signals:

• package.json scripts (dev, start, and cousins)
• Docker Compose layouts
• Makefile targets
• Cargo / Go project cues

If inference is wrong, you set an override in the app. That override is stored in app data, not written into the repo. AI-generated folders stay untaxed; see For AI-generated projects.

Login shell spawn

macOS GUI processes often lack the environment you built in zsh or fish: fnm, nvm, Volta, Homebrew’s docker. Zashiki runs project start/stop commands via:

$SHELL -lc '<your start command>'

That matches Terminal behavior for the common case. Edge cases exist if $SHELL is unusual — but the default path is the one developers already trust.

Docker status and compose ps use a cached docker binary path resolved once at startup, not a login shell on every click. Snappy selection matters: chrome paints from memory; running dots may lag a beat.

Process groups and stop

Many npm run dev trees spawn children. Signaling only the parent leaves orphans holding ports.

Zashiki:

1. Starts the command in a new process group
2. Persists pid (and related identity) in app data
3. On Stop, sends SIGTERM to the group, then SIGKILL if needed

That is how you free the port without playing lsof roulette every time — though when something else already owns the port, see Port already in use.

Rehydrate on launch

Closing the control plane must not kill your stack. Processes outlive the app. Next launch, Zashiki rehydrates running status from stored PIDs when they are still alive and match expectations, and can refresh Docker occupancy in the background.

Logs

Live process logs (and Compose log views) sit in a resizable pane so start/stop is not a black box. You still have Terminal; you should not need it for the happy path.

Scripts on a schedule

The same login-shell spawn runs scheduled jobs: commands launchd fires on a calendar, with the app closed, plus network wait, keep-awake, and run history.

What you need

• macOS
• Whatever runtime your projects need on the login-shell PATH
• Docker Desktop or OrbStack if Compose is part of the project

Install notes (unsigned builds, Gatekeeper): Download.

Source and releases: GitHub.