Watch Agent using command line

A command line wrapper for monitoring, iterations and long processes

So tell me

• Have you ever thought of running a iterative process on your command line ?
• Has it ever been simple to develop ?
• Have you ever not procrastinated to develop such a script ?

Watch Agent is here to rescue. It makes developing any iterative process as easy as just fetching data and showing it on command line. Just go ahead and install watch-agent start creating your own agents.

Installation

 npm i -g watch-agent

Usage:

1. Start an agent

 wa start <agent> [args...]

agent - name of the agent

args - agruments to be passed for agent to start an instance

Options:

• -d, --delay [optional] Delay in seconds between each fetch call. 60 seconds delay if not specified.
• -t, --times [optional] Number of times to execute. Infinite times if not specified.

2. Stop an agent

 wa stop <agent><pid>

agent - name of the agent

pid - process id of the agent to be stopped

3. Show running agent details

 wa show <agent> [args...]

agent - name of the agent

args - arguments to be passed for agent to show data

Making your own agents

Step 1: Create a directory and add that directory in env variable WATCH_AGENT_REPO. Recommended is to add this variable to .bash_profile for linux and mac systems. And system path for windows application

export WATCH_AGENT_REPO=~/watch-agent-repo

Step 2: Create sub directories inside that folder with the name of the agent prefixed with wa-.

Sample directory structure

.
├── common --> Common code required for all the agents
│ ├── http-client.js
│ └── prompt.js
├── node_modules --> Node imports
│ └── **
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json --> Node package.json
├── wa-agent1 --> Agent directory
│ └── index.js --> index.js file which `watch-agent` will
├── wa-agent2 invoke with `wa start agent1`
│ └── index.js
└── wa-agent3
└── index.js

Step 3: Create an index.js with the structure as given below.

module.exports={init: async(handler,args)=>{/** * [Optional] * This method will be called only for the first time when we start an agent. * It can we used to prompt for additional inputs or cancel agent from starting, if already existing. * It should return args which will be further passed on to fetch method of each iteration. * If false is returned agent will not be started. */returnargs;},fetch: (handler,args)=>{/**  * [Mandatory] * This method will be called for each iteration * You can return either a promise or an object. */returndata;},infer: (handler,data)=>{/**  * [Optional] * This method is used to perform additional operations based on data from fetch */},display: (handler,args)=>{/** * [Mandatory] * You can use the handler to get all records and use console.log to print when `wa show <agent>` command is called. */}};

Once this is done. You can start using watch-agent using the commmands specified.

Handler

We have below given method that can be called using the handler object.

1. handler.getAllRecords() - Will give you list of latest records of all instances of your agent in an array.
2. handler.getPreviousRecord() - Will get you only the previous record for the current agent instance.

Record Object

Sample record object

{
"args" : ["arg1","arg2"],
"iteration" : "4",
"status" : "SUCCESS",
"pid" : 2104,
"data" : ...
}

1. args - arguments passed in start command.
2. iteration - index of iteration currently in progress (starts from 1)
3. status - status of the previous execution
4. pid - os process id
5. data - data returned from fetch operation