What is this?
Watchman is a file watching service: it watches your files and records when they actually change.
Watchman is a file watching service: it watches your files and records when they actually change.Is it a background service, or a library I link into my app?It's a service: a daemon watches the filesystem while you interact with it from the command line or through client libraries.
It's a service: a daemon watches the filesystem while you interact with it from the command line or through client libraries.How do I get it installed?On macOS the easiest route is Homebrew: brew install watchman. Meta ships supported builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and the repo includes a Makefile for building from source.
On macOS the easiest route is Homebrew: brew install watchman. Meta ships supported builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and the repo includes a Makefile for building from source.Which languages can I use it from?Official clients exist for Python, Rust, and JavaScript; other language bindings are community-maintained.
Official clients exist for Python, Rust, and JavaScript; other language bindings are community-maintained.Is support the same on every platform?No — Meta officially supports Windows, macOS, and Linux builds on recent Ubuntu and Fedora only; Homebrew packaging, FreeBSD, and Solaris are community-maintained.
No — Meta officially supports Windows, macOS, and Linux builds on recent Ubuntu and Fedora only; Homebrew packaging, FreeBSD, and Solaris are community-maintained.Can I use it in my own project for free?Yes — it is open source under the MIT License, so personal and commercial use are both fine.
Yes — it is open source under the MIT License, so personal and commercial use are both fine.Is Watchman a new experiment or an established tool?Established: the GitHub repo dates back to 2012, has about 13.7k stars, and is maintained by Meta's source control team — long-running, widely used developer infrastructure.
Established: the GitHub repo dates back to 2012, has about 13.7k stars, and is maintained by Meta's source control team — long-running, widely used developer infrastructure.What are similar projects?autojump, turbocrypt, lnav, hexyl, thefuck, brew, homebrew-cask, TurboBench
autojump, turbocrypt, lnav, hexyl, thefuck, brew, homebrew-cask, TurboBenchWhich topics is it in?filesystem, homebrew, bsd, cpp, c++, monitoring, utility, command-line-tool, terminal, automation, tool, cli
filesystem, homebrew, bsd, cpp, c++, monitoring, utility, command-line-tool, terminal, automation, tool, cli