What is chain-cli?

When you're building software, you often need to restart a server or background task every time you change a file. Doing this manually gets old fast. This command-line tool, crestart, automates that process. It wraps your command and provides a simple way to force it to reload whenever you trigger it, either by sending a signal or making a quick network request. At a high level, the tool runs your command as a child process and watches for a reload trigger. You might pair it with a file-watcher that sends a quick message to a local port when files change. When that message arrives, the tool kills your current command and starts a fresh one. Standard input and output pass through directly, so you can interact with your program normally while the tool manages its lifecycle in the background. The tool is built for developers working on unix systems who want a lightweight restart mechanism without setting up a full development environment. For example, if you're running a local API server and want it to pick up code changes, you can use this alongside a file-watcher script. When you save a file, the watcher pings the tool, which restarts your server automatically. It also supports keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl-backslash for manual reloads and passes signals through to the underlying program. A few design choices stand out. The tool works with Python 2.7 and later, so it runs on older systems. It offers multiple ways to stop a program, including graceful and forceful options. The README doesn't go into detail on advanced configuration or edge cases, but the feature set suggests it's meant for simple, fast restart workflows rather than complex process management scenarios.