shell-process-patterns

What problem does it solve?

It prevents broken and unsafe process lifecycle handling where background or daemonized commands appear to be started or stopped, but actually leave running children, stale PID files, or bound network ports.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Correct background start patterns: Redirects stdin/stdout/stderr, captures a defensible PID approach, and includes a liveness gate so startup failures don’t masquerade as success.
• Reliable PID resolution and reconciliation: Detects when $! points to a wrapper (e.g., nohup, shells, subshells) and resolves the real owner PID by querying observable state like ports or open files.
• Signal/trap discipline + cleanup verification: Enforces SIGTERM-first shutdown, trap ordering rules, and kill-and-check verification so destructive actions are proven via re-querying system state.

Quick Start

Use the shell-process-patterns skill to start a server in the background and then kill it safely while verifying the port is actually released.