PROJECTS Posts
I've started work on a Process Manager for Node.js projects that can be used to start, stop, and autostart Node.js scripts. The idea is to create something small that has a simple purpose and doesn't require a lot of dependencies. I'm still looking for a name. Like several of my other utility projects I've currently working on, this one is intended to be included in projects and not installed as a package. I also plan to include a library that can be used for UI control of Node.js applications.
Among my SurrealDB tools I've been working on, SurrealMaestro is a CLI startup and shutdown manager for SurrealDB written in Node.js. It can manage multiple databases, comes with a status tool, PID tracking and checks, and can be used in automation tools. This should be beneficial to Node.js projects running SurrealDB, as it can be used with start up commands and used in a development environment, as it doesn't attempt to start a server that is already running. I plan to also build a library within SurrealMaestro that lets you build the database control into a UI application.
My interest in SurrealDB has really grown the past few days. I really feel like it can replace ArangoDB in my stack. The only issue is the same issue I had when I adopted ArangoDB: there aren't a lot of tools for Node.js. Like ArangoDB, I'll maybe have to build some myself. The first such tool is a CLI migration tool.
First of all, the Surrealist database manager application is awesome. It's great, it really is and, while ArangoDB has it's web client, it has functionality I missed using ArangoDB that I used to have for relational databases. That is a great tool, but it's more of a development and management tool. I need a migration tool for automation and to make my applications more portable.
Today I made a big push toward creating this tool and it's named Surrealigrate. I've built tools like it for other databases, such as the one we use for All The Flavors, Arangrate for ArangoDB, and I had initially built a multi-database tool for the CMS behind this site (now it uses Prisma, well, for now). Surrealgrate isn't quite ready, but like I said, it's getting very close. It's the first thing I've built from the ground up with AI assistance, which has sped up development considerably. Unfortunately, AI's aren't perfect, so there were a few issues and I had to rewrite portions of it, but most of the changes were just oversights that occurred as I asked the AI to add specific features in steps.
I need to build Surrealigrate up fairly quickly, so I can move some of my current projects to it and get them moving again. While it is already more advanced than my other tools have been, there will be more features coming later. Using AI allowed me to put in a lot of things initially that I wouldn't have had time to do right now. One different approach I'm taking with this tool is it's not intended to be an NPM package. It's intended to be included in a project as a component, potentially using git submodules. I'm hoping this approach makes it more useful per-project and will lead to others contributing.