blockaid

blockaid

blockaid is a lightweight, single-dependency CLI tool for orchestrating npm scripts. It helps you build reliable, OS-agnostic development and build workflows by making assertions about network ports.

Use Cases

blockaid is useful when your scripts depend on other processes, such as a database, a local API, or a development server.

• Ensure a database is running: Before starting your application, guarantee that a database (like MySQL on port 3306) is ready to accept connections.
• Prevent port conflicts: Before starting a development server, ensure the target port is free to avoid EADDRINUSE errors.
• Automate server restarts: Kill an existing process on a port before starting a new one, streamlining scripts that restart or reload.

All checks are performed in a cross-platform way, so your package.json scripts work seamlessly on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Example Usage

1. Requiring a Dependent Service

If your server.js script depends on a MySQL database, you can require that an application is listening on port 3306 before proceeding:

"scripts": {
  "dev": "blockaid -r mysql:3306 && nodemon server.js"
}

If no application is listening on port 3306, the script will exit with an error:

$ npm run dev
mysql is required, but is not listening on port 3306.

2. Requiring a Port to Be Free

To prevent port conflicts, you can require that a port is not in use before starting your server. This is useful for avoiding EADDRINUSE errors.

"scripts": {
  "dev": "blockaid -x webserver:3000 && nodemon server.js"
}

If an application is already listening on port 3000, blockaid will report it and exit:

$ npm run dev
port 3000 must be free, but a process (e.g. webserver) is already listening.

3. Killing an Existing Process

You can automatically kill any process listening on a given port before an action. This is common in development workflows where you want to ensure a clean start. blockaid waits for the kill signal to be sent and the process to terminate before exiting.

Here, we use an environment variable for the port and kill any existing listener:

"scripts": {
  "start-dev": "PORT=3000 blockaid -k dev-server:PORT && nodemon server.js"
}

If a process is found, blockaid issues a kill command and waits for it to complete:

$ npm run start-dev
port 3000 must be free, but a process (e.g. dev-server) is already listening. Killing process...
(nodemon starts successfully afterward)

The shell return value will always be 0 (success) or 1 (failure).

Command-Line Interface

Flag	Alias	Description
--require-listening	-r	PROGRAM_NAME:PORT Requires that a process is listening at PORT. PROGRAM_NAME is used for more helpful error messages.
--require-not-listening	-x	PROGRAM_NAME:PORT Requires that nothing is listening at PORT. PROGRAM_NAME is used in messages if the requirement is not met.
--kill-if-listening	-k	PROGRAM_NAME:PORT If a process is listening at PORT, blockaid will kill it and wait for it to exit before proceeding. PROGRAM_NAME is for display.

The PORT portion of the PROGRAM_NAME:PORT pair can be a number to use directly, or an environment variable to look up (e.g. the literal myserver:PORT would check process.env.PORT's value).