Devbox services: tame your daemons with process-compose

Ever wished you could manage your development services as easily as with Docker Compose, but without all the Docker baggage? Say hello to Devbox Services, powered by process-compose.

What's process-compose?

Think of process-compose as Docker Compose's leaner, meaner cousin. It's a dead-simple way to orchestrate your non-containerized apps. No more wrestling with Dockerfiles, volumes, or registries. Just define your services, and you're off to the races.

Here's what a process-compose.yml might look like:

version: "0.5"

processes:
  postgresql:
    command: |
      if ! grep -q "shared_preload_libraries = 'timescaledb'" $PGDATA/postgresql.conf; then
        echo "shared_preload_libraries = 'timescaledb'" >> $PGDATA/postgresql.conf
      fi
      pg_ctl start -o "-k $PGHOST"
    is_daemon: true
    shutdown:
      command: "pg_ctl stop -m fast"
    availability:
      restart: "always"
    readiness_probe:
      exec:
        command: "pg_isready"

  telegram-bot:
    command: |
      cd telegram-bot
      make install
      make dev
    availability:
      restart: "always"
    depends_on:
      postgresql:
        condition: process_healthy
    readiness_probe:
      http_get:
        host: 127.0.0.1
        scheme: http
        path: "/healthz"
        port: 5001
      initial_delay_seconds: 5
      period_seconds: 10
      timeout_seconds: 5
      success_threshold: 1
      failure_threshold: 3

Breaking it down

Let's dissect this beast:

PostgreSQL process

postgresql:
  command: |
    if ! grep -q "shared_preload_libraries = 'timescaledb'" $PGDATA/postgresql.conf; then
      echo "shared_preload_libraries = 'timescaledb'" >> $PGDATA/postgresql.conf
    fi
    pg_ctl start -o "-k $PGHOST"
  is_daemon: true
  shutdown:
    command: "pg_ctl stop -m fast"
  availability:
    restart: "always"
  readiness_probe:
    exec:
      command: "pg_isready"

This little chunk of YAML is doing some heavy lifting:

It checks if TimescaleDB is enabled. If not, it adds it to the config.
Fires up PostgreSQL with a custom socket directory.
Tells process-compose this is a long-running daemon.
Defines how to gracefully shut down PostgreSQL.
Sets it to always restart if it crashes.
Uses pg_isready to check if PostgreSQL is good to go.

Telegram bot process

telegram-bot:
  command: |
    cd telegram-bot
    make install
    make dev
  availability:
    restart: "always"
  depends_on:
    postgresql:
      condition: process_healthy
  readiness_probe:
    http_get:
      host: 127.0.0.1
      scheme: http
      path: "/healthz"
      port: 5001
    initial_delay_seconds: 5
    period_seconds: 10
    timeout_seconds: 5
    success_threshold: 1
    failure_threshold: 3

Here's where it gets interesting:

We're setting up a Telegram bot with a simple make install && make dev.
It'll restart if it crashes.
It won't start until PostgreSQL is healthy. No more race conditions!
We've got a fancy HTTP health check to make sure the bot is actually working.

Devbox services: your new best friend

Now, here's the kicker: Devbox wraps all this process-compose goodness into a simple CLI. No need to fumble with process-compose directly. Just use these magic commands:

devbox services ls - See what's cooking
devbox services restart - Give your services a kick
devbox services start - Fire everything up
devbox services stop - Shut it all down

It's that easy. No containers, no fuss, just your services running smoothly in your Devbox environment.

The bottom line

Devbox Services with process-compose gives you the power of containerized workflows without the overhead. It's perfect for development environments where you want simplicity and speed.

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