Show HN: Linux CLI tool to provide mutex locks for long running bash ops (github.com)

34 points by bigattichouse 12mo ago ↗ HN

Been exploring claude and spec-based coding, I think it turned out fairly successful. It's just a simple unix-style tool that gives you a single command to use in bash scripts to simplify mutex or semaphore locking of execution.

6 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 30.6 ms ] thread

asddfgg55 12mo ago ↗

Useful project, I love all things terminal, so I also enjoyed your project.

sluongng 12mo ago ↗

Why not https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/flock.2.html?

ethan_smith 12mo ago ↗

flock is indeed built-in: `flock -xn /tmp/mylock.lock -c "echo running locked command"` does mutex locking in bash. Your tool might offer better ergonomics or features beyond flock's capabilities?

forrestthewoods 12mo ago ↗

I don’t know the exact threshold at which you should use a real programming language instead of a bash script. But this type of work definitely exceeds it.

bigattichouse 12mo ago ↗

Sometimes you have a cron job that takes longer than it should (but inconsistently so), and another cron job that clobbers what that cron job is doing.

teddyh 12mo ago ↗

We already have lockfile: <https://manpages.debian.org/stable/procmail/lockfile.1.en.ht...>.