indpack

indpack

Cross-platform process introspection library for Python. Enumerates running processes, extracts their command line arguments, and parses those arguments into structured key-value mappings.

Supports Linux (procfs), macOS (ps), and Windows (wmic).

Install

uv pip install .

Or for development:

uv sync

Library usage

from indpack import get_ps_pids, get_pid_args, parse_pid_args

# List all PIDs
pids = get_ps_pids()

# Get command line args for a specific PID
args = get_pid_args(pids[0])

# Parse args into a dict
parsed = parse_pid_args(args)
# {"config": "/etc/app.conf", "verbose": True, "_positional": ["/usr/bin/app"]}

get_ps_pids() -> list[str]

Returns PIDs of all running processes as strings. Uses /proc on Linux, ps on macOS, and wmic on Windows.

get_pid_args(pid: str) -> list[str]

Returns the command line arguments for a given PID. Returns an empty list if the process is inaccessible (permissions, already exited, etc).

parse_pid_args(args: list[str]) -> dict[str, object]

Parses a list of command line arguments into a dictionary:

Input style	Result
--key=value	{"key": "value"}
--key value	{"key": "value"}
-k value	{"k": "value"}
--flag	{"flag": True}
-abc	{"a": True, "b": True, "c": True}
positional	{"_positional": ["positional"]}
-- --raw	{"_positional": ["--raw"]}

CLI

# List all PIDs
indpack pids

# Show args for a PID
indpack args 1234

# Parse args into JSON
indpack parse 1234

# Full inspection (all processes or limited)
indpack inspect
indpack inspect -n 10

Testing

# All tests
uv run pytest -v

# Unit tests only
uv run pytest -v -m "not integration"

# Integration tests only
uv run pytest -v -m integration

Project structure

src/indpack/
    __init__.py    # Public API exports
    __main__.py    # python -m indpack support
    core.py        # get_ps_pids, get_pid_args, parse_pid_args
    cli.py         # argparse CLI
tests/
    test_core.py         # Unit tests (mocked platform calls)
    test_cli.py          # Unit tests (mocked library calls)
    test_integration.py  # Live process table tests