**The Night Watch** is a file change tracker for directory trees, written
in **Zig**, cross platform and provides a CLI tool and a zig module
CJ van den Berg
5deb3dfa8b
Using realpath() in watch() caused events to be emitted under the resolved path (e.g. /private/tmp/...) rather than the path the caller provided (e.g. /tmp/..., where /tmp is a symlink on macOS). This broke all integration tests on macOS since the test file paths didn't match the emitted event paths. For absolute paths, use them unchanged. For relative paths, join with the current working directory without further symlink resolution. This preserves the caller's view of the path while still satisfying the kqueue backend's requirement for absolute paths. |
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| build.zig | ||
| build.zig.zon | ||
| README.md | ||
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T H E N I G H T W A T C H
The city sleeps. The files do not.
"FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC"
The Night Watch is a file change tracker for directory trees, written in Zig.
It provides:
- A standalone CLI for tracking filesystem changes
- A module for embedding change-tracking into other Zig programs
- Minimal dependencies and consistent, predictable, cross-platform behavior
It does not interfere. It does not speculate. It simply keeps watch.
Features
- Recursive directory tree tracking
- Deterministic multi-platform support (Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS, Windows)
- Lightweight and fast
- Embeddable Zig module API
- Standalone CLI executable
Installation
The Watch is written in Zig and built using the Zig build system.
Requirements
- Zig (currently zig-0.15.2)
Build CLI
zig build
The executable will be located in:
zig-out/bin/nightwatch
Install System-Wide
zig build install
Using as a Zig Module
The Night Watch exposes a reusable module that can be imported into other Zig programs.
In your build.zig:
const nightwatch = b.dependency("nightwatch", .{
.target = target,
.optimize = optimize,
});
exe.root_module.addImport("nightwatch", nightwatch.module("nightwatch"));
In your Zig source:
const nightwatch = @import("nightwatch");
You now have programmatic access to the tracking engine.
CLI Usage
nightwatch [{path}..]
Run:
nightwatch --help
for full command documentation.
Philosophy
Other tools watch files.
The Night Watch keeps watch over the peace.
It remembers what changed. It records what vanished. It notices what arrived at 2:14 AM.
And it writes it down.