Zoom Detector

A .NET application to send messages to an MQTT broker when a Zoom meeting starts and stops on your local machine.
I use this with my other project, pi-ticker, to display messages on a Raspberry Pi with a Unicorn HAT HD.

Running in the background

By default the program shows a Spectre.Console spinner and needs a terminal. Pass --daemon (or -d) to swap that display for a rolling log file, so the process can run with no terminal attached.

Each operating system keeps user logs in a different place, so the program resolves the directory at startup:

Platform	Log directory
macOS	~/Library/Logs/zoom-detector/
Linux	$XDG_STATE_HOME/zoom-detector/log/, or ~/.local/state/zoom-detector/log/
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\zoom-detector\logs\

Read the log at any time. On macOS:

tail -f ~/Library/Logs/zoom-detector/zoom-detector-*.log

To put the log somewhere else, set a directory in appsettings.yml. The value expands environment variables:

logging:
  directory: /var/log/zoom-detector

Log files roll daily, cap at 10 MB each, and the last 14 are kept.

Install as a background service

just install publishes the program, copies it into ~/.local/bin, and registers the right kind of background service for the platform it runs on:

Platform	Service
macOS	a launch agent
Linux	a systemd user unit
Windows	a scheduled task

just install
just status
just logs

just install never overwrites an existing appsettings.yml, because that file holds your broker address.

Use just uninstall to stop and remove the service. The program itself stays in ~/.local/bin.

What each platform gets

macOS gets a launch agent, which launchd starts at login with no terminal attached.

The recipe generates the agent from dist/local.zoom-detector.plist.template, filling in absolute paths for your home directory. The WorkingDirectory and Standard*Path keys take literal paths, so the recipe writes them out in full for the account it runs under. Git ignores the generated file.

Linux gets a systemd user unit, copied straight into place. systemd expands %h to your home directory, so the file works as it ships.

To keep it running while you are logged out:

loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

Windows gets a scheduled task, registered by dist/install-windows.ps1. The task runs in your own session with an interactive token, which is what lets it see the Zoom process it detects.

Installing by hand

The recipes above are a convenience. To do it yourself, publish the program, copy it and appsettings.yml into a directory on your path, then use the file in dist/ for your platform. The program reads appsettings.yml from its working directory, so those two files must sit together.

Other recipes

Recipe	What it does
just build	Compiles for development.
just publish	Produces the self-contained program in publish/.
just run	Runs in the foreground with the Spectre.Console display.
just run-daemon	Runs in the foreground writing to the log file.
just stage	Publishes and copies into ~/.local/bin, without registering a service.
just clean	Removes build output.