cli-error-notifier

Sends native desktop notifications if CLI apps fail

Technically: if a command exits with an exit code other than 0

Install

To use it in your project:

$ npm install --save-dev cli-error-notifier

To use it globally:

$ npm install --global cli-error-notifier

It requires Node.js (v4 or greater).

General usage

$ onerror --help

  Sends native desktop notifications if CLI apps fail

    Usage
      $ onerror <command> [options]

    Options
      --title,   -t   Sets the title of the notification.
                      Default: "An error has occured"
      --message, -m   Sets the message body of the notification.
                      Default: "Check the terminal for more information"
      --icon,    -i   Sets an icon. Can be any absolute path.
      --sound,   -s   Defines which sound to use.
                      Use "mute" to disable default sound notification.
                      Options: Mute, Basso, Blow, Bottle, Frog, Funk, Glass, Hero,
                               Morse, Ping, Pop, Purr, Sosumi, Submarine, Tink
                      Default: Bottle
      --version  -v   Displays the version number.
      --help     -h   Displays the help.

    Examples
      $ onerror "wget unknown-host.xyz"
      $ onerror "wget unknown-host.xyz" -s mute
      $ onerror "wget unknown-host.xyz" -t Error -m "My error message"
      $ onerror "wget unknown-host.xyz"  -s Glass -i https://cdn.rawgit.com/npm/logos/31945b5c/npm%20square/n-64.png

Usage with npm scripts

This little CLI comes in handy when writing build scripts.

Let’s imagine you have setup the following npm script for linting your JavaScript files:

{
  "scripts": {
    "eslint": "eslint src",
  }
}

With using cli-error-notifier a desktop notification can be generated at the moment the linting fails:

{
  "scripts": {
    "eslint": "onerror \"eslint src\"",
  }
}

This is especially useful for watching files while developing. You could use it in conjunction with onchange like in the following example:

{
  "scripts": {
    "eslint": "eslint src",
    "eslint:fix": "npm run eslint --silent -- --fix",
    "eslint:watch": "onchange \"src/**/*.js\" -- onerror \"npm run eslint --silent\""
  }
}

It also works flawlessly together with npm-run-all.

Cross platform compatibility

cli-error-notifier uses the brilliant node-notifier and therefore should work with Notification Center for macOS, notify-osd/libnotify-bin for Linux, Toasters for Windows 8/10, or taskbar Balloons for earlier Windows versions. Growl is used if none of these requirements are met.

Related

• onchange - Watch files and folders and run a command when anything is changed.
• npm-run-all - CLI tool to run multiple npm-scripts in parallel or serial.

License

MIT © Michael Kühnel