Feature Request: launchd/systemd service for persistent daemon

[BTForIT]

Summary

Would love to see official guidance or built-in support for running the Happy daemon as a system service (launchd on macOS, systemd on Linux) for auto-start on boot and crash recovery.

Current Approach

I set up a launchd service manually. Here's what worked for me on macOS:

LaunchAgent plist

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.happy-coder.daemon.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.happy-coder.daemon</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/.npm-global/bin/happy</string>
        <string>daemon</string>
        <string>start-sync</string>
    </array>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>PATH</key>
        <string>/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/Users/USERNAME/.npm-global/bin</string>
    </dict>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/happy-coder.log</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/happy-coder.err</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Setup commands

# Load the service
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.happy-coder.daemon.plist

# Check status
launchctl list | grep happy

Benefits

• Auto-starts on login
• Auto-restarts if daemon crashes
• No need to remember happy daemon start after reboot

Potential Issues / Questions

1. Conflict with happy daemon start: If someone runs happy daemon start manually while launchd is managing it, could get duplicate processes. Maybe needs mutex/lockfile?

2. Path differences: npm global bin location varies (~/.npm-global/bin, /usr/local/bin, etc.) - would need templating or detection

3. start-sync vs start: I used start-sync since launchd manages the lifecycle. Is this the right subcommand for service mode?

4. Updates: After npm update -g happy-coder, does the daemon need restart? launchd's KeepAlive might auto-handle this

5. Credentials/auth: Does the daemon need any env vars or auth tokens that might not be available at boot time?

Feature Request

Would be great to have:

• happy daemon install - creates platform-appropriate service file
• happy daemon uninstall - removes it
• Docs on recommended service setup

Happy to help test or contribute if there's interest!

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macOS 15.2, happy-coder 0.13.0