sindresorhus/execa

Ability to kill all descendents of the child process

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#96 opened on Jun 23, 2017

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 (14 comments) (13 reactions) (0 assignees)JavaScript (6,091 stars) (219 forks)batch import
enhancementhelp wanted

Description

When I'm working with child processes, I sometimes end up with detached processes running indefinitely after I've killed the direct child, which can lead to blocked ports and memory leaks.

I sometimes fix this by using a module like ps-tree to find out all the descendants PIDs, and then send all of them a kill command, but it feels messy. It would be nice if execa could provide a clean, cross-platform API for this.

Maybe something like this:

const execa = require('execa');

const child = execa('./something');

// ...

child.killTree().then(() => {
  console.log('all dead!');
});

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
backendcli
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Node.js child process basicsexeca API usage
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40
Research direction
Investigate how to implement a cross platform method to kill all descendant processes. Consider using process group or tree kill techniques. Look at existing comments in the issue for prior discussion and references to ps tree module. Review Node.js documentation on child processes and signal handling.