hot-reload

Hot reload

Edit the config file, then trigger a reload — no daemon restart, no dropped services:

gopherd reload        # via the control socket
kill -HUP <pid>       # same thing, signal-driven

Config

processes:
  - name: app
    command: /usr/local/bin/myapp
    args: ["300"]
    on-failure: shutdown

Reload re-reads the same path the daemon was started with (GOPHERD_CONFIG or /etc/gopherd/gopherd.yml) and reconciles:

• Added services start (in dependency order, honoring startup).
• Removed services are stopped with their configured stop-signal / kill-delay.
• Unchanged services keep running untouched — a reload is not a restart.
• Policy-only changes (on-failure, on-success, exit-code-map, signal-rewrite, backoff settings) mutate the running service in place and apply to its next exit.
• Checks and log-targets are reconciled the same way.

A reload is refused while the startup sequence is still running, and a config that fails to parse leaves the previous config active — a bad edit never kills the daemon.

Expected behavior

• Add a sidecar entry to the file, run gopherd reload: sidecar starts, app keeps its PID.
• Remove it again, reload: sidecar is stopped and dropped from status.

Test

Run level. One test rewrites the config and drives reload over the control socket, asserting the added service starts and, after a second rewrite, is removed again. The other triggers the same via SIGHUP. SIGTERM then yields a clean exit 0.

go test ./documentation/hot-reload/ -v